Can trade secrets be part of Confidentiality Agreements?
There are
many businesses that enter into confidentiality agreements in routine practice.
They do that because they have to trust parties in order to carry out some
important business ventures with them. They share trade secrets with the
parties in the confidentiality agreements so that they can move forward in the
best possible way. They share information and data which they never do
otherwise after consenting to such agreements. This helps the parties in making
the impossible things into possible once they move ahead together.
Whenever
two businesses enter into a joint venture, merger and any other similar kind of
business activity then they have to share lots of knowledge for getting
success. That knowledge is usually a combination of confidential and
non-confidential data and information. If such knowledge gets into the hands of
competitors of one of the businesses in the joint venture then that can cause
some real problems. The knowledge that
is of non public nature should never be disclosed and for protecting that
confidentiality agreements play their role.
Confidentiality
agreements are always signed between the organizations whenever they go for
mergers. In such cases the information is usually provided by both businesses
to each other and they become bound to not to disclose that to the third
parties. In most of the cases the businesses doing merger have difference of
nature of businesses and they cannot misuse the information for themselves.
However when such data or information reaches the competitors of any of such
businesses in merger then that can be really harmful for both.
Even in
absence of a confidentiality agreement the businesses are ethically bound not
to share the information of other businesses in their partnerships. However
things become professionally protected under the umbrella of a confidentiality
agreement. Trade secrets get protected legally when a confidentiality agreement
is there. The businesses never think of taking undue advantages of other
parties in that way.
