Law Commons^™

Striking A Balance: When Should Trade-Secret Law Shield Disclosures To The Government?, Elizabeth A. Rowe

UF Law Faculty Publications

In 2010, Toyota issued recalls on over eight million vehicles because of faulty acceleration. Assume that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requests that Toyota allow the government access to the data in black boxes on the recalled cars. The black boxes are operated by proprietary software and can only be accessed with special codes by Toyota. Assume further that Toyota refuses to provide the Black Box data to the government, claiming that it would reveal its trade secrets. How should courts approach what I coin these refusal-to-submit cases? There is a void in the literature and the case …