Direttiva sul dovere di diligenza delle imprese ai fini della sostenibilità e tutela del segreto commerciale

The article concerns the interplay between the new disclosure and reporting obligations introduced by Directive (EU) 2024/1760 (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, hereinafter “CSDDD”) and the protection of trade secrets (Directive (EU) 2016/943). Companies subject to CSDDD are required to report their sustainability due diligence processes, as well as to collect various pieces of information from undertakings within their chain of activities. Indeed, the management of an information network along the value chain of production and commercialization of goods and services is of fundamental importance for companies required to comply with the obligations under the CSDDD, in order to detect and to address adverse human rights and environmental impacts. However, the sharing of certain information could collide with the need to protect confidential and commercially sensitive information, know-how, or innovative results. Such conflicts of interests raise significant interpretative issues, which are not sufficiently addressed by the new Directive’s provisions (particularly Article 5 and Recital 40 of the CSDDD), nor by its amending proposals, and which could lead to tensions both in the nation- al implementation processes and in the future application of the obligations. After an outline of the relevant regulatory framework, the paper focuses on the issues arising from such interface, with the goal of providing some interpretative solutions also from the perspective of corporate regulatory compliance