Many situations require you to have a confidentiality agreement. It is also known as a nondisclosure agreement. Basically, you have two options - you can either choose a mutual confidentiality agreement or a unilateral confidentiality agreement. The first means that both parties are obliged by the agreement not to disclose information, know-how, technologies, relationships or anything of interest to third parties. It has to be underlined that this is relevant for both parties. On the contrary, the second type of agreement - the unilateral confidentiality agreement restricts only one of the parties in the contract to disclose any of the issues mentioned above. The other party can share the information though.
Most people probably think that nobody would ever sign a unilateral confidentiality agreement but they will be surprised. Maybe even you have signed one without giving it much thought. Do you remember signing a work contract stating that you are not allowed to share any information or knowledge that you have gained as a result as your work at the company. Did you even consider saying no to this contract? Especially with the idea that you actually sign a unilateral confidentiality agreement? That is a typical example of a unilateral nondisclosure agreement. As you see, many people sign them without hesitation, probably even a lot of you have.
In fact, this is more than an agreement. It underlines in which you want the business to go. If you want to show that you want to keep some things secret, you would choose a mutual agreement. This can make your relations a bit strained as this may imply some suspicion but it is definitely a very wise thing to do if you think that the leakage of information can cause you problems in the future. If you have even the slightest hesitation, ask for a mutual nondisclosure agreement.
Moreover, when it comes to agreements between companies, you would very rarely find any unilateral confidentiality agreements. And that is quite logical. Many companies have invested a lot of resources to acquire information and they do not want to hand it freely to everyone. Such agreements leave the information unprotected and it can be distributed according to the wishes of your partner. Needless to say, not so many companies want that. Even in our digital era, information is very valuable. What is more, it probably has never been more valuable as even hours and minutes can make a great difference nowadays.
Unless you have full confidence in your partner, which is very rare, or you do not think the issues in the contract are so important and need to secretive, which is more often the case, there is no problem to choose a unilateral confidentiality agreement.
In any case, make sure to protect your business with a NDA-Non-disclosure agreement, as by doing so you ensure the smooth workflow of the partnership.
There are a lot of legal document templates online which will enable you to create your own confidentiality agreement which will serve your purposes and will save you a lot of time which you can spend more productively.
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