How to Discuss Confidential Company Documents

Every business is a secretive source of information or processes that give it an edge over competitors. These could include customer lists find out here now created through considerable expense and effort as well as special product designs pricing formulas, codes, systems or other inventions. The law protects business by keeping these documents or processes confidential, so that competitors can’t easily access them.

In addition to these kinds of documents, there are a number of administrative documents that need to be kept private. These might include detailed desk layouts, seating plans and internal procedures. In addition, there may be confidential customer information such as sales numbers or other confidential information received from vendors. Then you could have personal information about employees, like tax forms and pay stubs.

A nondisclosure agreement is the best option for protecting confidential documents of a company. But, you must be extremely cautious when drafting the agreement and establishing what information is confidential. You must be specific to stop former or current employees from claiming later they didn’t know that the confidential information was protected under confidentiality policies.

Be very aware of the period of the nondisclosure agreement. It’s not binding in the event that the time period of protection is more than is necessary to protect the company’s legitimate or “protectable” interests. In general, the courts will take into account the specific circumstances to determine what is reasonable. If you are concerned about a particular employee, think about offering the promise of a raise or promotion in exchange for signing the agreement. This could be enough to dispel any claims of not knowing the document was confidential.