In this case, it is important to tread carefully and ensure that any explanation is based on factual and legal grounds. Here are some possible steps you can take to find a legal explanation for your client’s behavior: 1. **Understand the legal definition**: First, clarify the difference between commercial espionage and legal competitive intelligence gathering. Commercial espionage typically involves secret and improper means to obtain proprietary information about competitors, while competitive intelligence gathering uses legal means to obtain publicly available information. 2. **Review the means of conduct**: Analyze in detail the client’s method of obtaining information. Make sure the method relies primarily on public sources, legally purchased data, or information collected through legal means such as seminars and conferences. 3. **Highlight common industry practices**: Explain how the client’s behavior fits in with industry practices. Many companies conduct competitive intelligence gathering through legal means to understand market dynamics and competitor strategies. 4. **Provide training records and policies**: If your client has formal internal policies or training programs that guide employees to conduct intelligence gathering legally, provide these documents to demonstrate that the client is working to comply with the law. 5. **Motives and intent**: Emphasize that the client’s original intention was to conduct market analysis rather than steal trade secrets. Provide evidence that the client is focusing on broad trends or strategic intelligence rather than specific proprietary information. 6. **Consultants or external services**: If the client uses third-party vendors to perform intelligence gathering, ensure that these service providers comply with legal standards and can provide evidence of the methods they use to collect information. 7. **Corrective measures**: If certain actions may cross the line, indicate that the client is willing to take immediate corrective measures and review its internal procedures to avoid similar problems in the future. If the incident has entered legal proceedings, it is recommended to consult professional legal counsel as soon as possible to develop a more specific and legal defense strategy.