The owner of Topshop, Sir Philip Green controversially issued a sheaf of NDAs over accusations of racist and sexist bullying, but signatories to these agreements have now gone to The Telegraph to reveal what they know.
But what on earth is an ‘NDA’?
A non-disclosure agreement (to spell it out) is defined as a legal contract between at least two parties, which implies that a confidential relationship exists between them. NDAs cover information that should not be accessible to any parties other than the signatories, i.e. information covered by the agreement is held back from competitors and/or the general public. If an NDA is violated by one party, or even if they are known to be thinking about breaking it, the other can seek a court injunction to avoid disclosures.
Green fully denies any criminal wrongdoing and points out that the people who worked for his company signed the contracts voluntarily. His legalistic approach has prompted calls for a new law to prevent undue pressure to sign an NDA that is not in the signatory’s best interests.
Others have gone further and questioned the use of NDAs entirely. The Independent suggests ‘we need to get rid of NDAs for good’. The logic of this argument is as follows: if an NDA works and accusations against an unnamed individual never come to light, that individual will feel empowered to commit further acts of harassment. This is definitely not in the public interest, even if the two parties privately involved are agreeable to the NDA.
Current legislation means that anyone who breaches an NDA, with or without the support of the Telegraph, is left in a legally ambiguous position which could prove personally damaging.
“End of an era: BHS, Swansea” by Dai Lygad is licensed under CC BY
