Conde Nast announces plans to limit NDA use

Stan Duncan, the company’s chief people officer, laid out Conde Nast’s new stance on nondisclosure agreements in a memo to employees that was shared with The New York Times.

“There are legitimate arguments in favor of NDAs in certain circumstances, which is why their use remains widespread — confidential settlements can spare both employees and employers the cost of litigation, and maintain privacy for all involved,” Duncan wrote. “However, given our company’s values and commitment to transparency, we have decided that going forward, we will no longer enter into NDAs that prevent an employee from making a disclosure of conduct they were subjected to that they believe, in good faith, constitutes harassment, discrimination, or retaliation. We also expect to release existing NDAs in these matters.”

The executive added that the company would release people from existing nondisclosure agreements related to those matters on a case-by-case basis.

The use of nondisclosure agreements across many companies for complaints of sexual harassment or discrimination has become a flash point in the wake of the #MeToo movement.

The New Yorker has been at the forefront of the discussion: The magazine won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for Ronan Farrow’s investigation into decades of allegations of sexual misconduct by film producer Harvey Weinstein, which involved the use of nondisclosure agreements to silence his accusers. Weinstein is on trial, accused of rape, in New York.

Nondisclosure agreements were a point of contention during the Democratic presidential primary debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday. Sen. Elizabeth Warren criticized Michael Bloomberg for the use of nondisclosure agreements at his company, Bloomberg LP.