alt Hacker NewsBut it was a severance agreement. She accepted a sum of money for agreeing to not disparage. You don't see anything wrong with someone knowingly accepting these funds, and then turning around and immediately violating the agreement by writing a book (making even more money in the process)?
If it's about whistleblowing and doing the right thing, why not just refuse the money?
Replies
In a better world, disparagement would not legally refer to the dissemination of factual accounts.
In such a world it would only add to penalties for proven libel.
It’s a pretty simple concept: if the truth hurts, you’ve got no one but yourself to blame.
NDAs theoretically should never be able to paper over illegal actions. In a similar vein, non disparagement clauses should not be able to paper over the publication of legitimate insider experience of terrible — even if legal — behavior.
There should be a statute of limitations on this stuff. Otherwise we’ll see things like chemical plant employees who signed such an agreement keeping stories of dumping to their deathbeds.