Short answer. That may fall under Article 292, which punishes a person in charge, employee or workman of a manufacturing or industrial establishment who, to the prejudice of the owner, reveals the secrets of the industry. Prejudice to the owner is part of the offence, so damage has to be shown and not assumed.
What the law says
the person in charge, employee or workman of any manufacturing or industrial establishment who, to the prejudice of the owner thereof, shall reveal the secrets of the industry of the latter
Revised Penal Code, Article 292 — Revealing Industrial Secrets. Read the full provision →
What the provision requires
Article 292 reaches the person in charge, employee or workman of any manufacturing or industrial establishment who, to the prejudice of the owner thereof, shall reveal the secrets of the industry of the latter. Four elements sit in that sentence: the accused's position in the establishment, the industrial or manufacturing character of the business, a revelation of the industry's secrets, and prejudice to the owner. All four have to be established. A disclosure that caused the owner no prejudice does not answer the description the article gives.
The prejudice requirement sets it apart
The Code has a companion provision, Article 291, on revealing the secrets of a principal or master learned in the course of employment. Its wording does not carry the same requirement of prejudice on its face. Article 292 does, and that changes what an employer bringing a complaint has to be ready to prove. It is not enough to show the process left the building. There must be something showing the owner was set back by it — lost orders, a competitor's product, an abandoned advantage — and that evidence usually has to be assembled deliberately.
A secret of the industry, not merely something private
The article protects the secrets of the industry, which points at the know-how by which the establishment operates: the process, the formulation, the method. Commercial information of a general kind is a different subject, and something already published, reverse-engineered from a product on the market, or known throughout the trade is not a secret at all. This is where such cases most often falter, so the prior question for any owner is whether the process was genuinely held closed, and what was done to keep it that way.
Assemble the record before choosing a route
The criminal provision runs alongside remedies that may matter more in practice — the employment consequences, any confidentiality undertaking the worker signed, and the separate body of law on trade secrets and unfair competition. Whichever is used, the same material carries it: the access logs and system records showing what the person could reach, the confidentiality agreement, the evidence of the competitor's use, and the timeline connecting the departure to the appearance of the process elsewhere. Gather it early, because access records are usually overwritten on a cycle.