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Fraud Bill [HL]

I will have to give some thought to the specific example the noble Lord gives. Some immediate responses occur to me. Sometimes trade secrets are acquired by an employee or someone else who may be abusing his position, although that may well not be a helpful response to that example. I need to give some consideration to what the existing other protection is. I began my response to the amendment by making a point about the desirability of keeping the law of fraud and the law of theft aligned on this topic. That may remain an important consideration. That said, I understand the importance of ensuring that people in certain circumstances are protected, perhaps by the criminal law as well as they would be by the civil law. However, I cannot give a better answer to how one would deal with that specific example without some further consideration, which I will give to it after today.