As a lawyer, I’m always dealing with companies’ confidential information. So keeping secrets is a core part of my business. You may be surprised to find that it’s part of yours, too. They may be buried in various places–or dug up by your employees or independent contractors. And if exposed without permission, you can find yourself in hot water.
Consider including confidentiality provisions in the following kinds of scenarios:
- You use an independent graphic artist to help design a client’s annual report and provider her with sensitive client information.
- You don’t want an employee tweeting about a client product launch before its time.
- You want to avoid employee blogging about a company takeover.
- You’re sharing crucial market research with a strategic partner, but don’t want it to use the information for any purpose outside your partnership.
- You’ve hired a broker or finder for a business opportunity and don’t want your company information shared for an unauthorized purpose.
- You’ve taken on a business partner and don’t want her to misuse company information after she retires (or resigns).
And, of course, get it in writing.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Business Planning, Contracts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.2 Responses to “Can You Keep a Secret?”
Leave a Reply
June 22nd, 2009 at 10:48 am
These tips are very helpful especially that my business partners and i haven’t finalized our memorandum of agreement for our company. I started a ads and promotions company and i am still researching on the guidelines for our agreement. i will make use of these tips to ensure the confidentially of our ideas for our upcoming events. thanks for the tips.
July 11th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
You’re welcome. Get that agreement with your partner ASAP — the longer you wait, the greater the amount of confidential information you’ll be sharing with your “intended” . . . and which could be vulnerable to exposure if you two don’t move forward together.