The Ubiquity of NDAs in Culture
Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) are ubiquitous across industries, serving as essential tools to protect sensitive information in business dealings, employment relationships, and collaborations. They are widely used by companies of all sizes to safeguard trade secrets, intellectual property, and confidential strategies from unauthorized disclosure. From startups sharing ideas with investors to multinational corporations negotiating mergers, NDAs establish a legal framework that ensures trust and confidentiality. Their presence is so pervasive that they have become a standard part of contracts, emphasizing their critical role in modern commerce. Properly drafted NDAs not only protect information but also deter potential breaches and disputes.
Here are some interesting excerpts from an article published by The Cut:
The nondisclosure agreement is designed to live in the shadows. But earlier this year, I started to notice them everywhere. There was, of course, the NDA Donald Trump gave to Stormy Daniels, which was at the heart of his criminal trial and would now play a role in a second presidential election. In Silicon Valley, employees at OpenAI complained that the digital juggernaut of the moment was sending out NDAs that threatened to claw back their vested equity if they criticized the company. Lawyers representing Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in their divorce were arguing all spring over who had tried to make whom sign the more onerous NDA. O. J. Simpson reportedly gave one to every member of his family before they could visit him on his deathbed. And in May, in a very modern cry for help, Miss USA demanded a release from her NDA through a cryptic Instagram post in which the first letter of each sentence spelled out I AM SILENCED.
Those were just the NDAs that made headlines. In Vermont, a teacher at a Brazilian-jujitsu center was apparently requiring students to sign an NDA before receiving their black belt so they wouldn’t run off with his techniques. A 70-year-old woman in London convinced her local council to dim some streetlights that were keeping her awake and was then asked to sign an NDA so other residents wouldn’t be encouraged to bring further complaints. In Bhutan, where a government project to build a “Mindfulness City” had been shrouded in secrecy, a lawyer writing in the state newspaper argued that it was necessary to alter the country’s “traditional culture of gossiping and information sharing” and replace it with “a tool that is relatively new in Bhutan — the Non-Disclosure Agreement.” During an event at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, a professional wrestler who had been accused of signing one to cover up a backstage incident (he denies doing so) was taunted by fans with a thunderous chant: “NDA! NDA! NDA!”
The article goes on to say:
Gradually, then all at once, the NDA became enmeshed in every part of our lives — the defining legal document of our time. No one can say how many are signed every day because NDAs often prohibit even the acknowledgment of their existence, but lawyers who deal with them attest that a thicket of boring legalese once reserved for guarding proprietary corporate secrets is now one of the most commonly signed contracts in the world. One study says a third of American workers have signed one; another puts the number at more than half. NDAs are being given out to roommates, to parents, to boyfriends and ex-girlfriends, and to bachelor-party attendees and wedding guests. At a moment when it has never been easier to publicly shame, people are looking for a little extra insurance against being canceled. And while the Me Too movement highlighted the ways NDAs have long been used to cover up crimes and misdeeds, the true fallout of that reckoning was a perverse one: Harvey Weinstein may have made the NDA infamous, but he was also an advertisement for its power.
The author goes on to give a humorous yet descriptive account of what constitutes a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA):
In its simplest form, the nondisclosure agreement is a contract that prevents someone from saying something in exchange for something else. That something else is typically money, in the form of a job or a cash settlement, but it could be the chance to attend a sneak preview of a new Marvel movie. A “confidentiality agreement” is just another name for an NDA, while a non-disparagement agreement gives the same acronym a narrower focus: You can’t say something mean.
From there, every NDA, like every relationship, is a little bit different. Some fit on a single sheet of paper, like the one comedian Pete Davidson required from the audience at one of his stand-up shows. The NDA, from 2019, came with a $1 million penalty for offering any “opinions or critiques.” Others can be more than 30 pages long, like the one Tiger Woods gave to his mistress when his marriage was very publicly falling apart. He offered Rachel Uchitel $8 million in exchange for signing an NDA but didn’t have to pay much of it after she made several appearances in the press and on TV. They can be given out preemptively (as part of a prenup, or a contract given to a new hire) and retroactively (as in a divorce settlement, or when something bad happens at your job and your boss is willing to pay you not to talk about it). Some NDAs include carve-ins allowing you to talk to a therapist or close friends; others include carve-outs for specific friends with loose lips. The terms can expire at the end of a project or on a specific date. David Bowie’s divorce NDA ended after ten years, at which point his ex-wife, Angela, went on TV and said she was now free to let the world know she had once walked in on Bowie in bed with Mick Jagger. An NDA can also last forever. Diddy gave out an NDA that lasted as long as he lives, plus an additional 20 years. In 2018, a Canadian court ruled that a woman could not get out of an NDA she had signed 20 years earlier regarding the sexual abuse she had suffered at the hands of her father, even though her father was now dead.
Works Cited:
Wiedeman, Reeves. “Hush-Hush Affair How the NDA Became the Defining Legal Document of Our Time.” The Cut, New York Magazine, 1 July 2024, www.thecut.com/article/nda-non-disclosure-agreement-popularity.html. Accessed 6 Jul. 2024.
