The law of confidence in the UK already covers trade secrets, and provides protection against their unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure (including the preservation of confidentiality during legal proceedings), and hence satisfies many of the standards of protection provided in the Directive. However, the UK Government believes that it is necessary to implement a number of provisions of the Directive by way of secondary legislation, in order to cover certain perceived gaps and to ensure transparency and consistency across the UK's legal jurisdictions (in particular as the current position is not harmonised between England & Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland). In practice, this has resulted in a significant number of the provisions of the Directive being transposed directly into the implementing legislation.
The implementing legislation is contained in The Trade Secrets (Enforcement, etc.) Regulations 2018 [2018 No. 597] ("the Regulations"), which were laid before Parliament on 18 May 2018.
The Regulations came into force on 9 June 2018, i.e. in compliance with the Directive implementation deadline.