1 Go ahead and use the documents to the company's benefit, but make it clear to your boss that you don't want him passing confidential information to you in the future. If he threatens to fire you, threaten to leak the news to the press. Michael Vasquez was proud of his job as a new product manager for a biotechnology start-up, and he loved the high stakes and tough decisions that went along with the job. But as he sat in his office after a long day, he was troubled, struggling over what had happened earlier that day and the information he now possessed.

Just before lunch, Michael's boss had handed him a stack of private strategic documents from their closest competitor. It was a competitive intelligence gold mine-product plans, pricing strategies, partnership agreements and other documents, most clearly marked 'proprietary and confidential'. When Michael asked where the documents came from, his boss told him with a touch of pride that he had taken them right off the competing firm's server. 'I got into a private section of their intranet and downloaded everything that looked interesting', he said. Later, realising Michael was suspicious, the boss would say only that he had obtained 'electronic access' via a colleague and had not personally broken any passwords. Maybe not, Michael thought to himself, but this situation wouldn't pass the 60 Minutes test. If word of this acquisition of a competitor's confidential data ever got out to the press, the company's reputation would be ruined.