Nondisclosure agreement restrictions in Washington state might be the nation’s broadest after recent revisions—as NDA bans spread and expand beyond their original scope nearly five years after the #MeToo movement spotlighted sexual harassment and assault.
California first enacted a law in 2018 banning employers from imposing contracts that prevent employees from talking about their claims of workplace sexual harassment or assault. Fourteen other states have since passed similar restrictions on private-sector employers.
The measures began in response to public revelations that Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein and other high-profile actors and business executives used nondisclosure pacts to keep quiet the sexual misconduct claims against them.
Several states now impose a broader ban on nondisclosure agreements covering all forms of workplace discrimination and harassment—including California, which revised its law in 2021, and Maine, where a new law is set to take effect Aug. 8.
Washington lawmakers raised the bar yet higher this year, banning NDAs related to all forms of workplace discrimination as well as wage and hour violations and conduct that is “recognized as against a clear mandate of public policy,” effective June 9.
“The Washington law is beyond what folks were sort of used to seeing in response to MeToo,” said Catharine Morisset, an...
DAKAR. Ariel Gbaguidi, a journalist from Benin’s La Nation, won the award for fact-check of the year by a working journalist at the African Fact-Checking Awards ceremony held in Senegal on 2 Octob...