NDAs Are Out of Control. Here’s What Needs to Change
Orly Lobel, writing in the Harvard Business Review, believes that nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs, chill competition, through expansive definitions of what must remain confidential and proprietary, reducing the ability of a discontent employee or an employee working in a hostile work environment to go elsewhere.
“Importantly, as recent studies show clearly, preventing workers from using their knowledge and skills beyond a single workplace is harmful not simply to the worker but to entrepreneurship, competition, and economic growth,” she writes.
Lobel believes that legislatures and courts should look toward imposing penalties on overreaching contracts and rendering any contract with unenforceable scope void in its entirety.
