Non-disclosure agreements with clients?

[mark_sgp]

Does anyone have any experience with Fiverr gigs where a non-disclosure agreement was required between buyer and seller? For example, some types of consulting gigs, or any gigs involving exchange of proprietary or confidential information between parties.

The NDA could be one-way (targeting buyer or seller) or mutual (covering both). The context would also depend on governing law of the agreement, and since most of us work with buyers/sellers across national boundaries, this could get complicated, especially when legal counsel is not readily available on retainer to review such agreements before they are signed off.

 

[rawque_gulia]

18 minutes ago, mark_sgp said:

Does anyone have any experience with Fiverr gigs where a non-disclosure agreement was required between buyer and seller?

Yes, I have been involved in multiple projects where NDA was used --- sometimes from my side as a buyer and sometimes from the buyer's side when I was working as a seller. 

Even without involving a legal counsel or a lawyer, an NDA remains always valid if it has signatures and approvals from both parties. Legal counsels can indeed help you draft a solid NDA that complies with all applicable laws, keeping in mind of all legal aspects --- but if you're confident that you can create the document yourself (using templates or from scratch), you don't even need any legal counsel or lawyer. Just prepare the document, get it signed by the freelancer, and you are done! Just make sure that along with the signature on the document, you also get a written confirmation in Fiverr chats from the freelancer.

Regarding different laws and countries: Yes, each country can have its own governing laws, so it's always advisable & recommended to specify in the NDA itself which governing law applies on that document. This is very very very important to avoid any confusion in the future. For example: if you're from the USA and the freelancer is from Australia, and you want the NDA to follow US law, you can state this in the document itself and it will be valid according to US laws. It's that simple!!

[mark_sgp]

16 hours ago, rawque_gulia said:

Yes, I have been involved in multiple projects where NDA was used --- sometimes from my side as a buyer and sometimes from the buyer's side when I was working as a seller. 

Even without involving a legal counsel or a lawyer, an NDA remains always valid if it has signatures and approvals from both parties. Legal counsels can indeed help you draft a solid NDA that complies with all applicable laws, keeping in mind of all legal aspects --- but if you're confident that you can create the document yourself (using templates or from scratch), you don't even need any legal counsel or lawyer. Just prepare the document, get it signed by the freelancer, and you are done! Just make sure that along with the signature on the document, you also get a written confirmation in Fiverr chats from the freelancer.

Regarding different laws and countries: Yes, each country can have its own governing laws, so it's always advisable & recommended to specify in the NDA itself which governing law applies on that document. This is very very very important to avoid any confusion in the future. For example: if you're from the USA and the freelancer is from Australia, and you want the NDA to follow US law, you can state this in the document itself and it will be valid according to US laws. It's that simple!!

Thank you for your insights. I have some decent templates for NDAs, so in principle, it should not be an issue. Governing law can be a sticking point, however. If buyer and seller are in different countries, there is nothing compelling one or the other to accept any document with governing law outside their home country (excluding EU constituent countries). Hopefully, the relatively small scale of most Fiverr gigs will not create any major business complications in this regard.

[adv_abubakar]

Your posts have well explained the matter but as per my opinion a lawyer could do this task in a better way rather than anyone else.. good lawyer knows best to draft contracts and agreements professionally and amicably.

[reeveswiedeman]

Hi Mark—I'm a journalist with New York magazine, and I'm working on an article about Non-Disclosure Agreements. If you're open to it, I would love to learn more about the situation when you were asked to sign an NDA for a Fiverr job. If you're open to chatting more, you can reach me at reeves.wiedeman@nymag.com. Thank you!

[texvox]

On 5/8/2024 at 3:31 AM, mark_sgp said:

Does anyone have any experience with Fiverr gigs where a non-disclosure agreement was required between buyer and seller? For example, some types of consulting gigs, or any gigs involving exchange of proprietary or confidential information between parties.

The NDA could be one-way (targeting buyer or seller) or mutual (covering both). The context would also depend on governing law of the agreement, and since most of us work with buyers/sellers across national boundaries, this could get complicated, especially when legal counsel is not readily available on retainer to review such agreements before they are signed off.

 

Yes, I've signed many an NDA for projects I've worked on here on Fiverr. For reference, my industry is voice-over, and NDAs are not uncommon when working on higher-profile commercial projects as well as video-game & animations. 

I generally only agree to sign NDAs for projects over a certain $$$ threshold (in my mind, why entangle myself in a bunch of legal commitments for peanuts?) and I also only sign NDAs for projects with North American companies, primarily in the USA, since North American governing bodies are the only ones that I have a good understanding of so I feel more confident in reviewing the agreement and understanding what I am signing. And if I ever make an exception for non-North-American entities I charge an additional fee to cover legal review of the NDA.