Business secret enjoys legal protection in the Republic of Serbia as a legal category. The Law on the Protection of Business Secrets regulates the legal protection of business secrets from illegal acquisition, use and disclosure. The Law defines which pieces of information meet the conditions to be considered as a business secret. The Law on Companies further prescribes which persons are required to act in accordance with stated duties towards the company. Civil law protection, in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Protection of Business Secrets, can be provided by a lawsuit for the violation of a business secret. Business secrets enjoy criminal protection as well. Namely, the Serbian Criminal Code prescribes the diclosure of a business secret as a criminal offence. The basic form is punishable by imprinsonment from six months to five years.

In addition to the protection provided by applicable law, a business secret may also be protected by a contract. A non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is a contract in which the parties undertake not to disclose confidential information, specified in the contract, they have discovered during business or any other form of cooperation. A confidentiality agreement is also called a business secrecy agreement. It is known by abbreviations in English such as NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), SA (Secrecy Agreement) or CDA (Confidential Disclosure Agreement). Due to the great significance of trade secrets, NDA contracts have been at first widely used in Anglo-American countries, and the trend was soon spread to the rest of the world.

A confidentiality agreement can be unilateral, bilateral or multilateral. When it comes to an unilateral confidentiality agreement, one of the parties is the provider, and the other is the recipient of the information. In a bilateral agreement, both parties are the provider and the recipient of the information at the same time. In relation to a multilateral confidentiality agreement, more than two parties are involved. These contracts can be either or very complex, depending of the need of the parties involved. However, all confidentiality agreements have certain common parts, such as identificational data of the contracting parties, the subject of the agreement, the obligations of the parties, the definition and determination of confidential information, the temporal validity of the contract, the determination of exceptions, the consequences of the breach, and particular other provisions. It is significant to clearly indicate the permitted ways of using confidential information. Furthermore, in cases of cross-border cooperation, it is useful to determine the applicable law and jurisdiction in the event of a dispute. The parties may also consider adding an arbitration clause to allow an alternative method of dispute resolution.