Every business has some confidential process or information that gives it an edge over competitors. These might include customer lists that have been developed with significant expense and effort and special designs for products price formulas, code systems, and other inventions. The law safeguards businesses by making these processes or documents secret so that competitors do not have easy access to them.

In addition to these kinds of documents in addition, there are a lot of administrative dataroombusiness.com/protect-distribute-educational-content-via-data-rooms/ documents that need to be kept confidential. This includes detailed seating plans and layouts of offices along with internal procedures. In addition, there may be sensitive customer data like sales numbers or other confidential information received from vendors. Then, you may have personal information about employees, such as tax forms and pay stubs.

A nondisclosure agreement is the most effective method to protect confidential company documents. Be very cautious in defining what information is considered confidential and when drafting your agreement. Be very specific so that you can stop former or current employees from later claiming that they didn’t know the information was protected under confidentiality policies.

Also, be crystal clear about the duration of the nondisclosure agreement. It is not legally binding if the period exceeds what is reasonable to safeguard the legitimate interests of a company or those that are “protectable”. In general, courts examine the facts and decide what is fair. If you are concerned about a specific employee, you might consider offering the promise of a raise or a promotion in exchange for signing the agreement. This may be sufficient to overcome any allegations that you didn’t know the document was confidential.