COVID-19: Work together, but make sure to keep your secrets

The unprecedented challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic have, at least temporarily, spurred an even greater need for collaboration and teamwork across virtually all areas of government and private sectors.

Automotive companies such as Ford, General Motors and Tesla are working with healthcare companies 3M and GE Healthcare, as well as the United Auto Workers labour union, to turn their production facilities into assembly lines producing respirators, ventilators and plastic face shields.

Similar examples of these unlikely partnerships are popping up across countless other industries, combining the engineering and manufacturing expertise of one company with the know-how and specialised training of another in ways perhaps previously not considered.

But what happens after all the dust settles? While the urgency is real, those that took the time to craft well thought-out non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) will be relieved knowing that they took the steps necessary not only to play their role in dealing with the COVID-19 virus, but also to protect those ideas and position their company to succeed in the post-COVID environment.

To quote Charles Darwin: “In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”

The legal basis

NDAs (or confidentiality agreements, confidential disclosure agreements, proprietary information agreements or secrecy agreements) are known by many names, but at their roots they pertain to any agreement creating a legal contract through which the parties agree not to disclose confidential material, knowledge or information.

But while the NDA moniker and the mandate of the restrictive covenants outlined therein appear to suggest an intent to restrict the exchange of information, in fact, the purpose of these agreements is to foster that exchange and promote disclosure of ideas and collaboration.