This book explores the widespread misuse of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in Britain's workplace to conceal misconduct and silence victims. As legally binding contracts, NDAs typically feature in business transactions to protect signatories' confidentiality, sensitive information, and intellectual property. In recent years, however, the growth of NDA-related settlements in employment discrimination and sexual harassment cases has raised serious concerns about the questionable aims and potentially harmful outcomes of NDA use in such instances. In order to understand the extent of the problem and how to tackle it, the present volume focuses on three main areas: first, it considers the scope and ethical implications of NDA misuse; second, it examines key public policy initiatives and grassroots campaigns to stop NDAs being exploited; and third, it suggests pragmatic solutions and ways forward to eradicate this harmful practice.

From the outset, the work outlines the complex issues and debates surrounding NDAs along with countless examples and evidence from across the UK's labor market. Britain's experience is viewed within the broader context of the global #MeToo movement, including its overall impact on raising awareness of workplace transgressions and NDA misuse in employment settlements. Underpinned by an intersectional perspective, the book draws on a multidisciplinary body of academic and grey literature to expose the routine institutional reliance on NDAs to cover up wrongdoings. The gagging of victims and whistle-blowers by employers not only exacerbates the plight of vulnerable groups, such as women, ethnic minorities, and people with disabilities, but it also fails to address perpetrators' behavior and organizational malpractice. Against this backdrop, the book highlights an array of public policy initiatives aimed at addressing the NDA problem, including various parliamentary inquiries, legislation, and leading grassroots campaigns. The work also considers wider international perspectives on NDA misuse, particularly relating to countries where the practice is most extensively documented such as Ireland, the United States, Canada, and Australia.

Within this framework, the volume fills an important gap in the literature, as the first monograph to bring together existing knowledge of NDA misuse in Britain. By shining a light on this intractable social problem, the book raises questions about the role that detrimental NDAs and those who enable them play in perpetuating discrimination, inequality, and sexual transgressions in the workplace.