On November 22, 2006, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided Fiber
Systems International, Inc. v. Roehrs, ruling that the
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) allows an employer to
bring a civil action against an employee for downloading and copying
confidential or proprietary information from its computer system if it
spends more than $5,000 in any year to recover the data. This case is the
first reported decision by the Fifth Circuit on this issue and has armed
employers with a potential weapon in fighting unauthorized access of
proprietary information and theft of trade secrets by their employees.
