Human rights case risks exposing secret Tim Hortons recipes, lawyers say

Few things are more jealously guarded in the business world than trade secrets.

Where would Kentucky Fried Chicken be without its 11 secret herbs and spices? And when someone tried to peddle the secret formula for Coca-Cola to Pepsi in 2006, the iconic soft drink's arch rival promptly went to the cops, resulting in three arrests.

"Competition can sometimes be fierce, but also must be fair and legal," PepsiCo spokesman Dave DeCecco told Fox News at the time. "We're pleased the authorities and the FBI have identified the people responsible for this."

So when a human rights case involving a Tim Hortons franchisee threatened to reveal the doughnut king's trove of baked-goods recipes, the company's legal team sprang into action.

An exasperated B.C. Supreme Court judge urged the two sides to work things out themselves, but not before Christopher McHardy, representing Tim Hortons Inc., warned that key elements of the company's business could be compromised, the Globe and Mail reported.

Just imagine if the recipe for Timbits or blueberry fritters fell into the wrong hands.

It all started last year when four temporary foreign workers from Mexico filed a human rights complaint alleging discrimination at a Tims outlet in Dawson Creek, the booming northeast B.C. energy hub.

The four, who came to Canada under the temporary foreign workers program to work at two Dawson Creek Tims restaurants, alleged their working conditions were inferior to those of local employees. They said they also were subjected to racist and derogatory comments about their nationality and forced to live in sub-standard accommodation owned by franchise-holder Tony Van Den Bosch.

[ Related: Tim Hortons OT allegations highlight flaws in temporary foreign workers program ]

Last fall, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal approved an application for disclosure of documents belonging to Van Den Bosch and Tim Hortons Inc., which the complainants' lawyers said were needed counter efforts to have the complaint dismissed.

The documents include Tim Hortons' operating manual, compliance reviews covering Van Den Bosch's operation and numerous other documents. Tim Hortons' lawyers argued the disclosure demand amounted to a "fishing expedition," and that many of the documents being sought weren't relevant to the case.

Tims decided to challenge the order in court. Its lawyer, McHardy, told Justice Janice Dillon the operating manual is essentially a secure web site accessible to franchisees like Van Den Bosch, the Globe said. It holds thousands of documents from policies on training and store signage to the accepted way of making Tims' coffee and hundreds of recipes.

“If the court declines to intervene … it’s going to subject the petitioners to an overly broad and arbitrary disclosure order that goes well beyond the tribunal’s jurisdiction," McHardy told the court. "It’s going to compel them to disclose the confidential and proprietary foundation of their business,”

The Globe said the opposing lawyers had been negotiating and had agreed the tribunal didn't need access to all the documents, such as recipes. But when talks stalled on what documents specifically should be disclosed, the workers' lawyers fell back on a blanket disclosure demand.

[ Related: Teenager accidentally buys alleged Coca-Cola recipe ]

Dillon admonished the parties essentially for wasting the court's time on an issue they should have worked out themselves, the Globe reported.

After a break Thursday, the lawyers told Dillon they'd made some progress and the hearing was adjourned.

Devyn Cousineau, a member of the workers' legal team, said going to court was justified.

“Appearing in front of a judge adds a degree of pressure to resolve things that doesn’t exist otherwise,” she told the Globe.

McHardy said he was confident the parties would come to an agreement that kept Tims' recipes secret.

Since the Dawson Creek complaint surfaced, temporary foreign workers at a Tims outlet in Fernie, B.C., have come forward to complain the franchise owner took their overtime pay and demanded a processing fee to handle renewing their temporary work permits, which regulations require the employer to pay.

The RCMP and B.C. Employment Standards Branch were investigating.