NONDISCLOSURE AND CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENTS

When an investor first begins the document request process, an investor can learn a thing or two about the private equity firm themselves based on their response. This is a type of metacommunication, or details embedded in the response to the document request itself. Certain private equity firms may respond to these data requests differently. When faced with a document request, a private equity firm may ask an investor to sign a nondisclosure agreement (often referred to as an “NDA”) or a confidentiality agreement (often referred to as a “confi”).

NDAs could be referred to as a subset of confidentiality agreements. In general, some confidentiality agreements can be broader and cover a larger scope than a traditional nondisclosure agreement. From a more practical perspective, it could also be argued that it does not effectively matter what the agreement is technically labeled (e.g., either NDA or confi). The names are used for the same agreement and relate to the same subject matter—protecting confidential information. Agreements of such types become important in business operations when one party or both are providing certain information of a confidential nature to the other and wish to protect their rights in so far as it relates to the information being disclosed and what happens ....