NDAs and history (1 Viewer)

[wikkidpissah]

Presuming that President Drunkenuncle has continued his policy of requiring non-disclosure agreements from anyone who works for or does business with him, which i know for sure was the case when i was based in NYC in the 80s, i find myself curious how that applies to his political tenure. The answer may well be among the 1000s of pages of FFA political pooptoss, but i'm not curious enough to mine it - are there legal limitations on who a POTUS can muzzle this way? Do we know who in the White House is NDAed and who is not?

 

[CletiusMaximus]

Don't know the answer Mr. Wikkid, but remember that an NDA is just a piece of paper, a contract that is made to be breached and broken if the circumstances make it appropriate to do so. They are often poorly written, sometimes unenforceable, and usually have outs and expiration dates. I've told clients, if you want some leverage, use an NDA; but if your company's future really depends on something being kept secret, best to keep it secret.

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

Doesn't seem like a hard stretch at all for some state court judge somewhere to find such contracts as void against public policy. 

 

[wikkidpissah]

Don't know the answer Mr. Wikkid, but remember that an NDA is just a piece of paper, a contract that is made to be breached and broken if the circumstances make it appropriate to do so. They are often poorly written, sometimes unenforceable, and usually have outs and expiration dates. I've told clients, if you want some leverage, use an NDA; but if your company's future really depends on something being kept secret, best to keep it secret.

With 40 yrs practice and an exhaustive litigation team originally formed by Roy Cohn, i'm betting TeamTrump - which was built on suing - NDAs are better clad than most

 

[OrtonToOlsen]

Good question.  

 

[Koya]

Don't know the answer Mr. Wikkid, but remember that an NDA is just a piece of paper, a contract that is made to be breached and broken if the circumstances make it appropriate to do so. They are often poorly written, sometimes unenforceable, and usually have outs and expiration dates. I've told clients, if you want some leverage, use an NDA; but if your company's future really depends on something being kept secret, best to keep it secret.

Also, when you breach a contract there are appropriate damages as recourse.

If you break a binding and legal NDA but there is no hardship and no damages to recoup, not much left in terms of non disclosure issues.

As the President would not (technically nor legally) be a revenue/profit center, Im not sure what damages they could even ask for if someone were to spill the beans. 

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

Also, when you breach a contract there are appropriate damages as recourse.

If you break a binding and legal NDA but there is no hardship and no damages to recoup, not much left in terms of non disclosure issues.

As the President would not (technically nor legally) be a revenue/profit center, Im not sure what damages they could even ask for if someone were to spill the beans. 

Trump's NDAs have liquidated damages clauses.  Again, those might not hold up, but they're designed so that he doesn't have to "prove" damages.

 

[OrtonToOlsen]

Just my non-lawyer opinion but I think NDA's should become void once someone runs for public office.  You don't want your dirty laundry aired?  Stay in the private sector.

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

I gave this a lot of thought when people were talking about the supposed Apprentice tapes.  In my opinion, Burnett et al's NDAs should become non-enforceable once Trump becomes a candidate for public office.  Particularly to the extent that they don't cover trade secrets or something.  I don't see how a contract that limits information that the public would find useful in evaluating a candidate can ever be in the public interest. 

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

#######it, Tanner.

 

[Koya]

With 40 yrs practice and an exhaustive litigation team originally formed by Roy Cohn, i'm betting TeamTrump - which was built on suing - NDAs are better clad than most

I think quite the opposite. This is a bully who uses a cleaver, not a surgeon who uses a scalpel. 

Trump works off of bully, bluster and bluff... if you can stand up to him and call it, last option is pay you enough to keep things quiet.

Scare tactics and payoffs on the few times that hasn't worked, seem this guys MO far more than well worded legalise. 

Again, drawing from my experience working for someone with many similar personality traits, if anything Trump is "smarter than his lawyers" and forces them to put on "stronger" and "better" language while purposely creating what he believes are legal loopholes or ambiguities that Trump thinks work to his benefit.  Often such tactics do just the opposite...

but he is good at threatening scorched Earth, lying to achieve whatever goal he selfishly wants and breaking out the big bad lawyers ... and if that doesn't work, break out the check book. 

 

[Koya]

Trump's NDAs have liquidated damages clauses.  Again, those might not hold up, but they're designed so that he doesn't have to "prove" damages.

What could such a clause look to accomplish in his role as president? Again, what IS the monetary damage?

 

[OrtonToOlsen]

#######it, Tanner.

BOOM NONLAWYERED

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

What could such a clause look to accomplish in his role as president? Again, what IS the monetary damage?

Liquidated damages clauses just set a contractual amount to be paid in the event of a breach.  So in a normal contract, we have all this arguing about  what your position would be if I had not breached, and whether you tried to mitigate those damages, yadda yadda yadda.  Liquidated damages just say "the parties agree if Party X breaches, Party X must pay Party Y 5 million dollars."

Those aren't ironclad provisions.  Courts sometimes refuse to enforce them.  But they're still used fairly often. 

 

[wikkidpissah]

I think quite the opposite. This is a bully who uses a cleaver, not a surgeon who uses a scalpel. 

Trump works off of bully, bluster and bluff... if you can stand up to him and call it, last option is pay you enough to keep things quiet.

Scare tactics and payoffs on the few times that hasn't worked, seem this guys MO far more than well worded legalise. 

Again, drawing from my experience working for someone with many similar personality traits, if anything Trump is "smarter than his lawyers" and forces them to put on "stronger" and "better" language while purposely creating what he believes are legal loopholes or ambiguities that Trump thinks work to his benefit.  Often such tactics do just the opposite...

but he is good at threatening scorched Earth, lying to achieve whatever goal he selfishly wants and breaking out the big bad lawyers ... and if that doesn't work, break out the check book. 

Do you know who Roy Cohn, Trump's ethics guru, was?!

Plus, i know from that 80s experience, Trump built his empire on contracting construction companies overextending themselves to get a Manhattan job and then lowballing on payment - forcing them to accept dimes on a dollar or go Chapter 11 while his team tied payment up in court. He had more litigators than architects backinaday. Heck, most of Trump's original political buddies came from how this move gave him defacto control of NYC construction unions, which he leveraged to fairly well  buy the west side of Manhattan and run the town.

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

Do you know who Roy Cohn, Trump's ethics guru, was?!

Plus, i know from that 80s experience, Trump built his empire on contracting construction companies overextending themselves to get a Manhattan job and then lowballing on payment - forcing them to accept dimes on a dollar or go Chapter 11 while his team tied payment up in court. He had more litigators than architects backinaday. Heck, most of Trump's original political buddies came from how this move gave him defacto control of NYC construction unions, which he leveraged to fairly well  buy the west side of Manhattan and run the town.

My own impression of Trump's typical representation, derived from people I know who have been adverse to him in cases, is that his lawyers are very aggressive, but not uncommonly sophisticated.  This works great against some Mom and Pop drywall subcontractor.  Stiff them on the bill and make them spend money to chase you into court and fight off a bunch of early motions.  It probably works less well against other sophisticated parties with good representation.   He tends to eventually settle those cases. 

 

[El Floppo]

My own impression of Trump's typical representation, derived from people I know who have been adverse to him in cases, is that his lawyers are very aggressive, but not uncommonly sophisticated.  This works great against some Mom and Pop drywall subcontractor.  Stiff them on the bill and make them spend money to chase you into court and fight off a bunch of early motions.  It probably works less well against other sophisticated parties with good representation.   He tends to eventually settle those cases. 

the architect used in hillary ads was a professor of mine in college... sounds like trump's team essentially told him that they were prepared to make him spend a lot of time and money to get paid what he was owed from trump. also sounds like he caved pretty easily.

 

[wikkidpissah]

My own impression of Trump's typical representation, derived from people I know who have been adverse to him in cases, is that his lawyers are very aggressive, but not uncommonly sophisticated.  This works great against some Mom and Pop drywall subcontractor.  Stiff them on the bill and make them spend money to chase you into court and fight off a bunch of early motions.  It probably works less well against other sophisticated parties with good representation.   He tends to eventually settle those cases. 

Yeah, my knowledge of him in those days was social, from a time when power was like a hot new accessory for boomers so people talked about it quite often, but i wouldnt be surprised if his team lacked sophistication, even though they leveraged it into a LOT. Can't imagine ol' Bullypants wanting too many guys smarter than him around, which sets a weird bar. That fits.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

This seems like an easy one. Public records laws would trump Trump.

 

[CletiusMaximus]

Do you know who Roy Cohn, Trump's ethics guru, was?!

I'm only familiar with Tony Kushner's version of Cohn, but agree with Koya that bluster is not often a sign of competence, and often indicates the opposite. I'd want to see the agreement. If it indeed contains a liquidated damages provision, that may be unenforceable as others noted. Even if it holds up, some information may be valuable enough that a media group may happily pay it. In the case of civil or criminal investigations and lawsuits, there's almost always an exception allowing disclosure in response to a subpoena.

 

[wikkidpissah]

I'm only familiar with Tony Kushner's version of Cohn, but agree with Koya that bluster is not often a sign of competence, and often indicates the opposite. I'd want to see the agreement. If it indeed contains a liquidated damages provision, that may be unenforceable as others noted. Even if it holds up, some information may be valuable enough that a media group may happily pay it. In the case of civil or criminal investigations and lawsuits, there's almost always an exception allowing disclosure in response to a subpoena.

Cohn pretty much invented harass-unto-death. Dont want to say too much, but i knew twinks @ Max's Kansas City who would have normally considered damage done to them by rich & powerful men the winning lottery ticket it often was who would tremble at the prospect of pursuing recourse for abuse at the hands of a certain prominent NYC attorney.