When must a document be kept confidential? I applied for a job and received an offer. The offer letter and employee contract state Please note that the details of your compensation are to remain strictly confidential. and Employee represents and agrees that he has received a copy of this Agreement to keep for his own records. Employee further agrees to maintain the confidentiality of and not disclose the terms and conditions contained in this Agreement, except as otherwise provided herein. Since I would be moving to the US for the work, I would like to consult with friends and family. Does this mean it's illegal for me to show them the offer letter and terms of employment I received? I never agreed to keep these confidential. Are such terms legally binding, even if you didn't sign anything? Does showing this to close friends or relatives constitute a breach?
Some states (including California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, New York and Oregon, per the website below) have recently passed legislation outlawing pay secrecy requirements. Check online to see if the state you will work in is among them. Also see http://www.npr.org/2014/04/13/301989789/pay-secrecy-policies-at-work-often-illegal-and-misunderstood and https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/legal-and-compliance/state-and-local-updates/Pages/Proposed-State-Laws-Address-Pay-Secrecy.aspx
In German Law you need to give your agreement ("Willenserklärung") to a contract or in this case terms of service. This is done by telling the other part. In some cases this can also be implied by an action (example: putting your bottle of beer onto the cashiers table is an offer to buy this bottle). As a second criteria a "Willenserklärung" needs to be the exact will of the part that declares its will (the website user in this case) §§ 133, 157 BGB or that the other side (you) could only see so (not the case here as this mainly speaks of content). If you visit a website and there are terms of services, the "Willenserklärung" is only given when the user read and agreed to the terms. If he did not, the terms of service are not applied until the user agrees to them. So I would recommend to block the website until the user agreed (overlay) as you need to proof he did when in court. Additionally there are so called AGB's in Germany. Those are contracts that are used or planed for many (more than 3) uses and set by one side (you). This may apply here, so you need to follow a lot of other rules like making sure the user had access and agreed, then there are many content restrictions and so on... I recommend consulting a German Lawyer specialized on this topic as this is very complex and includes other German laws for Media too, depending on the content of your site and terms. Also note that everything said is only based on my own knowledge and can not be used as safe legal source.
None because the principle is Freedom to contract There is a general right of any being (natural like a person or even a company) to contract with anyone. Buying someone's service is a contract. A contract forms when: They offer something You offer something Both sides agree on it. (meeting of the minds) It is totally legal for a company to make wears a mask in our place of business a part of either being admitted onto the property or agreeing to contract with you. Noncompliance means as a result that they don't agree to serve you and don't offer to you. In fact, they explicitly reject to contract with you unless you wear a mask, which is their right unless there is a law that would specifically make that reason illegal. There are laws that reduce the freedom of contract, such as the civil right act (protected classes, such as religion, race, sex and more), the Americans with disabilities act (demanding reasonable accommodation), and labor laws (outlawing labor practices or limiting the amount of work or minimum payment) as well as anti-discrimination laws (establishing further classes). However note, that laws need to be written in such a way that they don't discriminate against the company either! One case where freedom to contract was attacked using an anti-discrimination law was Masterpiece Cakeshop - which was decided on first amendment grounds based on the rights of the owner: the law can't force someone to make a product he would not support the message of. Currently, there might only be some ordinance that bans mask policies in Texas, but it is dubious if that might be even an enforceable order from the Texas governor - Especially since OSHA just made adjustments to standards and mandates on the federal level - which include adjustments to respiratory protection fields.
To preface my answer, this aspect of UK law is unclear at best and I try to set out general principles where available. If you are acting in a private sphere, then the recording of conversations are unregulated, however this is only for personal use – i.e., should you desire to make notes on what was said for your reference at a later date. Should you wish to share it with a third party, then you would need consent from all participants or be able to demonstrate that it would be in the public interest. If you are acting as an employee or a company, then the situation changes. Firstly, you need to check your contract, whilst this does not constitute a crime, it may be against the terms of your employment. Secondly, a company can only make recordings without knowledge under statutory conditions, such as to establish facts, ensure regulatory compliance or demonstrate standards that are achieved or need to be achieved by training. It is a general principle that conversations recorded without consent are inadmissible in court, particularly in terms of a criminal proceedings. In civil matters, it similarly follows the concept that a claimant should come to court with clean hands. However, judges are usually more pragmatic in civil cases and if parties are aware of the existence of the recording, then it often be subject to usual rules of disclosure, though this may open the creator of the recording to subsequent litigation regarding the illegality of the recording under Data Protection Act or others.
Bonded labor is illegal in India, but enforcement is lax. Read Right against exploitation in Fundamental rights in India. The right against exploitation, given in Articles 23 and 24, provides for two provisions, namely the abolition of trafficking in human beings and Begar (forced labour)... As per law, they cannot make the contract binding if it relates to bonding of the laborer. But a general contract may stand in court if they have made you sign the contract and paid the duty to government for the contract. This contract will be mild form of Bonds/begar-contracts. As per the requirements of the contract, usually they will ask you to give them your original documents and degree certificate. Do not do that. That will give them control, and it's illegal. From personal experience, such companies are phonies and they want to exploit you. Visa thing is a scare. As per they wont give me Experience letter and Releasing letter; they might do that, and so you will not be able to show experience. You can file a lawsuit against them. (But you know it's a waste of time in Indian courts) As per first three things you mentioned: It is written on my company's letter head. It doesn't contain any stamp paper. It doesn't contain any company seal. It's not a contract. Do not provide them your actual signatures. Make a strange signature so that you can later argue that it's not your signature. But think about the consequences: You are going to that (probably shady) company, do you think they will hold any of their promises later, at all. Think: Will the company stay in business until your bond is over? Then how will you get an Experience certificate? That ends the answer. A few suggestions I'd suggest finding a different job. I'd suggest talking to a lawyer. It's cheaper than your life being screwed up. I'd suggest talking to your family about it. Nothing written here constitutes legal advice. Talk to a lawyer to get a legal opinion on the matter.
Contracts do not have to be written and signed on pieces of paper, except in a few cases specified by law. Writing style (ordinary style of talking vs. high-register formulaic language) does not affect the validity or a writing in contract law. You do have something in writing. What matters most is what he actually said (exact words, not your belief of what it must have meant), and how it relates to any existing contractual obligation. For example if the message says &quot;You're fired, turn your badge in at the desk. I'll think about giving you two weeks pay&quot;, that's not an enforceable promise. But your existing contract might say &quot;You get 2 weeks severance pay when we fire you&quot;, and that can't be walked by by saying &quot;I'll thinking about it&quot;. And it also depends on whether there are any laws mandating severance pay (but California does not have any mandatory severance pay law).
An agreement to agree is void There is a multitude of case law on this point. If the NDA was not available to you when you signed the employment contract and the term was couched as you describe; then the term would be unenforcable. That is, your employment contract would be binding except for that term i.e. you could not be compelled to sign the NDA. Now, there may be a requirement on you to negotiate in good faith in an attempt to find an NDA you can agree to but if you can't find one you can't find one. You cannot (legally) be fired for this reason. Now, if the NDA was available, and you were told where to find it, and irrespective of if you did or didn't find it, you would be bound to the NDA.
Contracts A contract is not a piece of paper; it is an agreement intended to be legally binding between 2 or more people and it may be verbal or written or a combination of both. That said, where a person has signed a document knowing that it contains contractual terms, in the absence of fraud that person is bound by the terms: it is immaterial whether the person signing reads the document or not. So there are two reasons why a signed contract would not be binding: the person did not know it contained contractual terms fraud. It is in the second case that the validity of the signature would matter. Fraud would have to be proved: it would not be sufficient to say "I did not sign that"; the person would need to demonstrate that a fraud has been perpetrated. Signatures Particularly today, with the ability to scan a signature it is trivially easy to affix anyone's signature to anything. However, a party to a contract is entitled to rely prima facie on the validity of the signature. A person would have to provide evidence that it was not their signature or had been affixed without their knowledge or consent. A court would look at the entire circumstances surrounding such a claim; if a person had, up until the dispute, acted as though they had signed the document then a court would probably not countenance an argument that they hadn't. It is always possible to construct contrived circumstances where this or that could happen but, in reality, they are extremely rare. Unless you are dealing with a con-artist, you can trust the signature; if you are dealing with a con-artist, you have bigger problems. See, the President has endorsed this answer: