Who Can Sign a Confidentiality Agreement?

Confidentiality agreements must be signed by designated individuals.

Confidentiality agreements or nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) are important documents in business and law when it comes to keeping certain secrets under wrap. These can be secrets pertaining to legal issues, scientific research, medical conditions, financial information or other data. There are several people who can or must sign confidentiality agreements in the case of exchange of information.

General Principle

The general principle for NDAs is that anyone expected to be privy to confidential information that is to be shared at a meeting or disclosed electronically should sign the agreement before hearing or reading the information. This includes principles and lower ranking employees. Without requiring each individual to sign, there could be a "leak" from someone with no legal obligation to keep the information secret. For this reason, information is usually shared by as small a group as possible.

Business to Business

Confidentiality agreements are used in business arrangements to protect company secrets and financial information, especially in the case of private companies. These companies like to keep their income statement and balance sheet information secret and rarely reveal them except to potential investors or lenders. Parties involved in potential investments or partnerships must, therefore, sign the confidentiality agreement. These include the partners and analysts of the investment firm. If a corporate partnership is proposed, team members from each company may sign an NDA.

Business to Individual

Individuals with special information such as a scientific discovery or security information may also want to force a company to sign a confidentiality agreement. Usually, this occurs when the individual is attempting to sell the information to the company but must provide verification before the transaction can take place. Individuals have very little recourse over large companies, so an NDA is an important safety net.

Medical Confidentiality

In general, conversations between doctor and patient are protected as confidential speech. In this case, no confidentiality agreement needs to be signed because it is mandated secrecy under law. This also applies to psychiatrists and psychologists. In addition, your insurance company that covers your medical conditions is also prohibited by law from sharing this information. Therefore, insurance company employees also do not need to sign a confidentiality agreement.

References

• Score: Protect Your Trade Secrets with a Nondisclosure Agreement
• Bitlaw: Confidentiality Agreement
• Law Professor: Confidentiality Agreements
• Chilling Effects: Non-Disclosure Agreement