New legislation which limits the use of confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements in relation to victims of crime comes into effect on 1 October. Employers and other organisations will need to ensure that any agreements entered into from that date onwards reflect these new requirements.
The new restrictions will operate in a similar way to those that have long applied in relation protected disclosures under whistleblowing legislation, which they overlap. The aim is to make sure that victims of crime are not prevented by NDAs from engaging with the criminal justice system and relevant regulators, as well as seeking professional or other support.
Provisions in any agreement entered into from 1 October onwards that seek to prevent a victim of crime from passing information to a specified category of recipient will be of no legal effect. There are currently 10 categories of approved recipient including the police, lawyers, health professionals, victim support services, regulators and close family members. Restrictions on disclosures made primarily for releasing information into the public domain will remain valid.
Victims of crime – ie the people protected by these measures – are widely defined. As well as the direct victims of any kind of criminal offence, the definition extends to those who witnessed a crime being committed, or who had a close family member who died as a result of criminal conduct. Protection applies not only to victims as defined, but to those who “reasonably believe” they are a victim.
Looking further into the future, additional restrictions on NDAs have been included in the Employment Rights Bill in relation workplace discrimination or harassment (see our earlier post here). Similar measures have already been introduced in the HE sector.
These new measures apply in England and Wales, but not the rest of the UK For more information (including fuller details of the relevant definitions) see the Government’s guidance here.
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