Indicted ex-Apple manager agrees to protect secrets

Former Apple global supply manager Paul Devine, who was recently arrested and accused of accepting kickback payments from iPod and iPhone accessory suppliers, has agreed to a court order protecting Apple trade secrets. Bloomberg reports that the protective order covers documents, tapes, diskettes, hard drives or other media produced during the discovery phase of the criminal case containing material “that is intended to be kept secret and is trade secret information belonging to Apple.” Devine, who is also the defendant in a civil suit brought against himself and business partner Andrew Ang by Apple, agreed to procedures about how the data will be handled in pre-trial negotiations, without giving up the right to potentially use such information during the trial. Devine is accused of sharing confidential information from Apple with the suppliers, which used the information to negotiate favorable contracts with Apple.