Posted today by the Asbury Park Press

Minneapolis Star Tribune publisher Par Ridder was barred from his job for a year by a judge, a victory for the rival St. Paul Pioneer Press whose trade secrets he was found to have passed on to his current employer. Judge David Higgs in St. Paul, Minn., ruled that Ridder violated the state's Uniform Trade Secrets Act and his "common law duty of confidentiality" by taking data from his old employer, the Pioneer Press. "There is no question that Ridder knew or at least should have known that the Pioneer Press information he took, used and distributed was confidential," Higgs wrote in a ruling Tuesday. "Ridder essentially grew up in the newspaper industry." The lawsuit by MediaNews Group Inc.'s Pioneer Press claimed that Ridder hurt the newspaper by taking advertising and budget data when he resigned in March.