Friend asking me to sign an NDA

[Shinebrightinthenight]

Aibu to refuse to sign it? I don’t understand why people would feel the need to put a friend that they trust under an NDA. She’s asked all her other friends to sign NDA’s as well so not just me. She is quite well known (was in the public eye) but nothings happened recently to cause this so it seems quite random to now be wanting to put us all under NDA. The NDA’s are proper ones as well that have been wrote by lawyers.

But who are we trying to impress here? I’d lose all confidence by being asked. And I wouldn’t need to come to MN to figure that out.

And I suspect it’s much tougher as a “celeb” to make true friend than it is for us ordinary folks. Perhaps the friend should consider that and place more value on her existing friendships now that she’s become fancy.

Exactly! No one has even asked. Why would we care?

She's not allowed to start threads on MN or any other social media.

OP in a work context I have reviewed and amended hundreds if not thousands of NDA in my career as they are widely used in the City as transactions need to be kept confidential until they are publicly launched.

One carve out is if the information comes into the public domain other than by your breach. The problem you could have is if information becomes public about the celeb other than from you then you could easily assume you are free to talk about it. However, if that information had been released by another in breach of their NDA you could find yourself caught up in a nasty legal argument. Firstly, how do you prove you weren't the original source and secondly was the information actually in the public domain if it had been leaked in breach of contract by someone else (you may have a strong argument but you might end up with significant legal fees defending yourself).

What is the duration of this NDA, how is the protected information described, how do you know whether something has been provided as private information, how do you know when something is legitimately in the public domain, who determines if the information has become stale?

I very much doubt that!

This stuff is really not that deep- OP either signs or she doesn't...

🙄- you know damn well what the OP means. Why post this kind of snarky stuff?

Her partner is gonna get media bashed and she's damage limitating.

I wouldn't have an issue with signing one if my friend was high profile. They get screwed over by so-called friends all the time so I'd be happy to give them that peace of mind.

Ridiculous, I bet she overshares on social
media? It’s a control thing and signing would put you on an unlevek playing field. This would be a friendship deal breaker for me.

I would demand a large sum of money and a bottle of Cristal... otherwise The Sun gets the dirt.

Well, given that you have already started posting about your friend on social media, I can see why she’d like an NDA from you.

I don't see how these would be enforceable unless your friend is paying you to sign. In UK law, for any contract to be valid there must be consideration,, i.e. each side must be giving something of value. Ask your friend what her lawyers have said about this.

How do you suggest anyone would identify the friend?

yeah I know exactly who the friend is from the information posted here ... Not.

We ALL post about people we know on MN. Usually saying and revealing things we wouldn't tell people in real life because you know

a. We don't use actual names
b. It is an anonymous forum.

😂😂Luvvit. Succinct. Straight to the errm point.

I’ve signed them for work. Always get legal advice though before doing so.

The idea of a friend suddenly asking you to sign one is really odd. It’s hardly like being a live in nanny for someone really well known where I clearly see you’d want to protect privacy.

Ask her to pay you for it 😃.
I suspect she would just drop you as a friend though.

Still I can’t see the NDA being of any benefit to you, and could be to your detriment

Obviously on this post OP hasn’t posted anything identifiable, but what if the next post had slightly more info. Some mumsnetters are like GCHQ and do searches on previous threads. And capable of extracting quite a lot of info about posters. But someone who posts about a friend on social media no matter how vaguely may cause trouble. I remember a few years ago someone posted on mumsnet what a famous persons MIL thought about them, it wasn’t flattering and I often wondered if that had contributed to the divorce which happened later. You don’t even have to be the one posting , just the friend of a friend .@

@Whatsfordinnerglutenfree You are assuming that people post the truth on MN. In reality at least half the posts appear to be made up anyway.

So few posts by the OP, she must have signed it straight after posting!

One carve out is if the information comes into the public domain other than by your breach. The problem you could have is if information becomes public about the celeb other than from you then you could easily assume you are free to talk about it. However, if that information had been released by another in breach of their NDA you could find yourself caught up in a nasty legal argument.

The wording I usually use/see is that information which has come into the public domain other than by breach of this agreement is exempt from confidentiality provisions. If that entering into the public domain is as a result of a breach of another agreement, that’s a separate issue to be taken up by the parties to it and unless the OP is party to that NDA too, she’d not be implicated. But I’d completely agree that it would be an absolute arse ache of an accusation to deal with, particularly among friends.

If you do sign, make sure it's a mutual NDA so you are also protected.

@Rollin

under these circumstances- pretty much unenforceable. We worked with NDAs on many of our projects and they’re not worth the paper they’re no longer printed on!

Why would you think this? Properly drafted NDAs (either with contractual consideration or drafted as a deed) are absolutely enforceable.

Best response on the thread 🤣

Maybe the reason nothing has come up about her is that she asks everyone to sign NDAs?