Settlement Agreements: New Law To Stop Them Being Used To Prevent Employees Reporting A Crime

The Government has announced that a new law will be introduced to prevent confidentiality clauses within settlement agreements / non-disclosure agreements (NDA's) from being used to prevent people from reporting a crime. However, these proposals simply duplicate laws that already exist as it is already the case that confidentiality clauses within settlement agreements / NDA's cannot be used to prevent the reporting of a crime as they cannot override the right to make a protected disclosure (i.e. whistleblowing). Any that attempted to do so would be void and unenforceable. At best, any new legislation, therefore, would do no more than further enhance the protections that already exist by further clarifying what the limits of confidentiality clauses are.