When does a legal agreement and cash payment not count?
...... Apparently when a woman has spent all the money paid to her.
In Las Vegas in the US, the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo allegedly had a sexual encounter with a woman in 2009, which he says was consensual, and she claims wasn't. At the time, he was said to have paid her a substantial sum to stop her making public her complaint that he forced her into sex.
The money, $375,000, was paid specifically for her silence, and was a legal non disclosure agreement. Now although a large sum, it was cheaper Mr Ronaldo claims, than having to go through the US courts to prove his innocence. She claims he just bought her off because he could (not because she wanted the money?). The claim that he paid money to the woman was denied as recently as April 2017 by Mr Ronaldo's agent ...
However the claims resurfaced again in October 2018 when the woman, emboldened she claims by the #MeToo movement, went public .... this despite her having accepted the money, and signed the legal agreement way back on 2009. It appears therefore that the legal agreement isn't worth the paper it was written on, and that breach of contract holds no fears in the US courts.
In the meantime in the UK, a "leading businessman" (and a number of his senior staff), have won a legal battle to stop the Daily Telegraph newspaper printing harassment claims against him. The reason given by three Court of Appeal judges (Sir Terence Etherton, Lord Justice Underhill and Lord Justice Henderson), is that the five (female?) staff making the claims, had been "compromised by settlement agreements" and by the payment of "substantial" payouts to stay silent. However a Labour peer decided that he knew better than the three Court of Appeal judges, and named the man as Sir Philip Green. An abuse of parliamentary privilege if ever there was one, which was not designed to ignore legal judgements.
Anyway, until this intervention, it was presumed that Non Disclosure Agreements (NDA's) were legally binding, and the paper was aware of NDA's signed by the accusers agreeing to keep the details "confidential". However this isn't the end of the matter, because the matter will now rumble on until a full hearing early next year .... but with the accused tried by the media in a feeding frenzy. With calls to strip him of his title, he's apparently been found guilty without a trial.
Of course the truth is that if you are bought off with cash and sign a NDA, you should remain bought off .... In other words NDA's should be accepted as legally binding deals. But one suspects that now that the legal dam has been breached in the USA, its only a matter of time before it bursts in the UK as well.
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| When All The Moneys Gone ..... The Deal Is Off. |
...... Apparently when a woman has spent all the money paid to her.
In Las Vegas in the US, the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo allegedly had a sexual encounter with a woman in 2009, which he says was consensual, and she claims wasn't. At the time, he was said to have paid her a substantial sum to stop her making public her complaint that he forced her into sex.
The money, $375,000, was paid specifically for her silence, and was a legal non disclosure agreement. Now although a large sum, it was cheaper Mr Ronaldo claims, than having to go through the US courts to prove his innocence. She claims he just bought her off because he could (not because she wanted the money?). The claim that he paid money to the woman was denied as recently as April 2017 by Mr Ronaldo's agent ...
However the claims resurfaced again in October 2018 when the woman, emboldened she claims by the #MeToo movement, went public .... this despite her having accepted the money, and signed the legal agreement way back on 2009. It appears therefore that the legal agreement isn't worth the paper it was written on, and that breach of contract holds no fears in the US courts.
In the meantime in the UK, a "leading businessman" (and a number of his senior staff), have won a legal battle to stop the Daily Telegraph newspaper printing harassment claims against him. The reason given by three Court of Appeal judges (Sir Terence Etherton, Lord Justice Underhill and Lord Justice Henderson), is that the five (female?) staff making the claims, had been "compromised by settlement agreements" and by the payment of "substantial" payouts to stay silent. However a Labour peer decided that he knew better than the three Court of Appeal judges, and named the man as Sir Philip Green. An abuse of parliamentary privilege if ever there was one, which was not designed to ignore legal judgements.
Anyway, until this intervention, it was presumed that Non Disclosure Agreements (NDA's) were legally binding, and the paper was aware of NDA's signed by the accusers agreeing to keep the details "confidential". However this isn't the end of the matter, because the matter will now rumble on until a full hearing early next year .... but with the accused tried by the media in a feeding frenzy. With calls to strip him of his title, he's apparently been found guilty without a trial.
Of course the truth is that if you are bought off with cash and sign a NDA, you should remain bought off .... In other words NDA's should be accepted as legally binding deals. But one suspects that now that the legal dam has been breached in the USA, its only a matter of time before it bursts in the UK as well.
I thought it curious that five women were bought off in the Philip Green affair and there was not one woman who was not ? Surely if he is an abuser of women as implied, why is there not at least one victim who refused the money and went to the police instead ?
ReplyDeleteThis is not conclusive proof of anything, but I thought that the question was missing from the news.
The question of NDAs is an interesting one, I always wondered where I might stand if I had a contract with a bank robber which they broke, could I sue them ? However I think that there are rules about agreements which further illegal activity not being legal, etc. It may be pretty clear at that end of the scale but it becomes blurred in cases of white collar crime because it can involve people who actually make law or influence it greatly.
But coming back to these NDAs; it could be argued that they are negotiated under duress because the alternative is not necessarily pleasant for the alleged victim. So it perhaps should be of no surprise if there were no abused women who didn't sign an NDA (in a hypothetical case) as they are chosen in the first place because they are subordinate and they are left with everything to lose and their dignity, if they don't comply til the end.
When someone t6akes money to not publicise something, then its either
Delete(a) A bribe, if its covering up an illegal act, or
(b) A legal contract to the mutual advantage of both parties.
It can't be anything else really.
(1) If some woman thinks someone has sexually assaulted her, but chooses to take money instead of complain to the police, then its (a).
(2) If some woman thinks someone has been talking rudely to her, but chooses to take money instead of complain, then its (b).
A moral conundrum and no mistake, but once the money has changed hands, then the women are morally obliged to keep quiet.
Or
Delete(c) Blackmail, if the encounter was consensuel and one party threatens to claim assault.
(C) Blackmail, is a criminal act in itself, so not a legal NDA.
DeleteThat makes it different from the other two options.
I'm not sure that it is different to the other two option as bribery is also illegal, but it is nevertheless another option which may lead to signing an NDA.
DeleteI guess the difference in blackmail is that it some one threatening to tell (unless paid), whereas in the others its being paid to keep quiet.
Delete