The indictment in this case concerns the president of the management board of Ceramika Artystyczna Spółdzielnia Rękodzieła Artystycznego. As reported by Ewa Węglarowicz-Makowska, spokesperson for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Jelenia Góra, investigators accuse her of unlawfully disclosing and using information constituting the trade secret of one of the cooperative’s contractors.
This allegedly included information concerning the organization of the company, its method of calculating prices, order volumes, production and warehouse levels, the amount of financial liabilities, and payments made.
– We have information that an indictment has been filed with the court, but the documents have not yet been delivered to the president. Helena Somoleńska does not plead guilty and will demonstrate before the court that she is innocent – says attorney Arkadiusz Malak, legal representative of Helena Smoleńska, president of the management board of Ceramika Artystyczna. Through her attorney, Helena Smoleńska gave istotne.pl permission to use her name.
According to the prosecutor’s office, the accused allegedly acted from June to November 2024. During that period, while serving as president of the cooperative’s management board, she allegedly repeatedly disclosed confidential information to foreign contractors of the injured company. Investigators’ findings indicate that this took place mainly through electronic correspondence sent by cooperative employees on her instructions.
The messages allegedly included payment demands, transfer confirmations, invoices, and detailed statements concerning orders and production.
The prosecutor’s office claims that these actions had a specific business objective. As stated by the Jelenia Góra prosecutor’s office spokesperson, they were allegedly intended to remove the injured company from its existing commercial cooperation with its long-standing contractors in the United States and to establish direct cooperation between those contractors and the cooperative.
Investigators also accuse the defendant of disseminating false information about the company’s financial situation and the way it conducted its business. According to the prosecutor’s office, the woman allegedly claimed that the company failed to settle its liabilities toward the cooperative despite receiving payments from its contractors and that it misled its business partners.
In the prosecutor’s office’s view, these actions led to the termination of long-term commercial cooperation between the injured company and its main foreign contractors. The cooperative allegedly then took over those business relationships. Investigators indicate that this caused the injured party significant financial and economic damage.
The defendant has not pleaded guilty to the alleged offenses. She is to be held responsible, among other things, for disclosing trade secrets and offenses under the Act on Combating Unfair Competition. She faces up to two years in prison. According to the prosecutor’s office, she had not previously been convicted.