The past few years have seen a significant and highly public move by the Department of Justice and other government entities to pursue prosecutions of the criminal laws governing the theft of trade secrets, including the theft of trade secrets from hedge fund managers.  In articles published in the Hedge Fund Law Report in December 2010 and April of 2012, Sean R. O’Brien and Sara A. Welch, Managing Partner and Counsel, respectively, at O’Brien LLP, examined the significant government resources being committed to these efforts, as well as the fast-changing legal framework that applied to them.  See “Protecting Hedge Funds’ Trade Secrets: The Federal Government’s Enforcement of Criminal Laws Protecting Proprietary Trading,” Hedge Fund Law Report, Vol. 3, No. 48 (Dec. 10, 2010); and “Protecting Hedge Funds’ Trade Secrets: What a Difference a Year Makes,” Hedge Fund Law Report, Vol. 5, No. 16 (Apr. 19, 2012).  Another year has wrought equally significant developments in this critical area.  In this guest article, O’Brien and Welch return to the pages of the HFLR to examine these developments and explain their implications for hedge fund managers.