The 'Secret' Of Bud Light

A recent CNN report, AB InBev accuses rival Miller Coors of obtaining the secret recipe of Bud Light, (CNN 18 October 2019), deals with the interesting issue of trade secrets. The headline, of course, gives you a fair idea of what the case is all about.

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world's largest brewer, alleges that rival brewer Miller Coors wrongly got its hands on the recipes for the Bud Light and Michelob Ultra beers. These recipes, say AB InBev, are trade secrets. There are now court proceedings underway in the USA and the court papers have apparently been heavily redacted - this is seemingly due to the secrecy surrounding the beer-making process! The claim is that a Miller Coors employee (who had previously been with AB InBev) persuaded a former workmate from AB InBev to send him the recipes, recipes that were apparently very clear and specific. It is further claimed that the Miller Coors' employee approached his former colleague at the specific request of his new employers. AB InBev want this information returned. They also want damages.

As for the defence, this comment from a spokesman for Miller Coors probably tells us what we need to know: “Miller Coors respects confidential information and takes any contrary allegations seriously, but if the ingredients are a secret, why did they spend tens of millions of dollars telling the entire world what's in Bud Light? And why are the ingredients printed on Bud-Lights' packaging in giant letters.”

This is apparently not the first time the parties have clashed - there was an earlier spat when AB InBev falsely suggested that Miller Coors used corn syrup in its product, and Miller Coors managed to get a court order requiring AB InBev to stop using provocative phrases like “no corn syrup”.

In South Africa trade secret cases are rare, but they do come up from time to time. The law certainly will protect trade secrets or confidential information in the right circumstances. It may do so if the information is clearly given in confidence, with the law then imposing a duty on the person receiving it not to use or disclose it. One example of this might be an employment relationship, and the issue of confidentiality will of course often be specifically dealt with in the employment contract. Another example might be where a person or business makes certain disclosures to another business as part of a business proposal, in anticipation of a business relationship developing (again this might be dealt with...