US trade secrets dispute draws lessons for companies in Ireland

ZAGG, a Delaware corporation based in Utah specialising in mobile phone accessories, brought legal action against Irish ex-employee Dermot Keogh over claims he had misappropriated the company’s trade secrets and breached a restrictive covenant agreement after leaving the company to work for competitor myCharge in November 2023.

Shortly after, ZAGG filed a lawsuit against Keogh and his new employer, myCharge. In January 2024, myCharge dismissed Keogh as part of a settlement with ZAGG. All claims against myCharge were subsequently dropped.

ZAGG continued to pursue the case against Keogh. However, on 7 April 2025, a Delaware court found (33-page/ 8.2MB PDF) that the company had failed to provide sufficient evidence that Keogh had used its confidential information and misappropriated trade secrets. It is understood that Keogh has sought permission from the court to proceed with a counter claim of tortious interference against his former employer.

Commenting on the case, Dublin-based intellectual property expert Maureen Daly of Pinsent Masons said a trade secret legal challenge of this nature would be unlikely to gain much traction in Ireland. “Based on the current facts, if the same action was taken in Ireland, it is unlikely that the company would have succeeded in claims of 'misappropriation of trade secrets' and breach of confidential information under common law,” she said.

In Ireland, trade secrets are protected by the European Union (Protection of Trade Secrets Regulations 2018 (SI 188/2018), which transposed the EU Trade Secrets Directive (EU 2016/943) into Irish law, as well as by common law. 

Under Irish law, for trade secrets to be protected, a company must be able to prove either that the information is secret in the sense that it is not generally known or readily available to individuals within the circles that normally deal with such information; that it has commercial value because it is a secret; or that it has been subject to reasonable steps by the person lawfully in control of the information to keep it a secret.

Failure to do so will result in the claim being unsuccessful.

“In this case, ZAGG could not explain why under the equivalent US provision its 'trade secret' had ‘independent economic value…from not being generally known to’,” said Daly. “In Ireland, if it could not prove that its information has ‘commercial value because it is a secret', then it would not be deemed to be a trade secret.”

Under common law in Ireland, Daly said that successful claims of breach of confidential information must also have a quality of confidence. “It must have been imparted in circumstances that imposed an obligation of confidence and there has been misuse of the confidential information,” she said. “In the current case, ZAGG could not prove that its confidential information had been used by its ex-employee. In Ireland, based on the current facts, it is unlikely a claim of breach of confidential information would have succeeded.”

Isabel Humburg, intellectual property specialist at Pinsent Masons, said employers in Ireland contemplating taking legal action over misappropriation of trade secrets can draw useful lessons from this case. “The lesson for other companies is that, to succeed in Ireland, they must be able to prove that the relevant information is a 'trade secret' as defined under law,” she said. “It is not enough just to say that information is a 'trade secret'. While confidential information is not part of an employee's general acquired skill and information, and therefore, cannot be used when their employment relationship ends, an employer must be able to show that its confidential information has been used in order to succeed in a breach of confidential information case.”