Recital 14a

To help businesses in understanding the trade secrets ‘handbrake’ mechanism, and ensuring that it can be an effective tool in preserving the confidentiality of trade secrets, the Commission should issue guidelines for data holders to apply the handbrake in practice, giving them necessary legal certainty. In these guidelines, the Commission should in particular provide guidance on how to assess serious economic damage and what data holders need to take into account when examining the enforceability of trade secrets protection in third countries. The guidance should include an assessment of categories of data that are especially sensitive in critical sectors and could, when leaked or when their confidentiality is disclosed, be particularly harmful to the interests of data holders. An example of especially sensitive categories of data could be industrial manufacturing know-how. Critical sectors could include, in particular, those listed in Annex I and Annex II, Number 3, 5a, 5d and 5e, of Directive (EU) 2022/2555).