Latest news with #ZeldaPerkins
Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Why a ban on gagging orders could have unintended consequences
As a Hollywood mogul, before his spectacular fall from grace in 2017, Harvey Weinstein produced some modern classics: Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare in Love, Gangs of New York. Yet his lasting legacy will be to have sparked the MeToo campaign and his convictions in California for rape. Meanwhile, in the UK, as of last week it could be argued that he will be responsible for the death of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). Ministers unveiled an amendment to the Employment Rights Bill that will ban employers imposing gagging orders in relation to deals struck over allegations of harassment and discrimination. Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, said that the government acted after having 'heard the calls from victims of harassment and discrimination to end the misuse of NDAs. It is time we stamped this practice out …' Zelda Perkins, Weinstein's former British assistant and the founder of the campaign group Can't Buy My Silence UK, who blew the whistle on the 73-year-old movie mogul by breaking her gagging order, greeted the move. 'This change has been a very long time coming,' she said. 'For every person who has spoken out, despite fear, legal threats or personal cost — this is proof that your voice made a difference.' Perkins warned, however, that the regulations imposed under the legislation must be 'watertight'. Those backing the move have claimed — as Perkins said — that NDAs, or confidentiality clauses, 'have been used to cover up harassment and discrimination for decades'. Hailing the legislation as 'a major turning point', Perkins's group said that it would make 'the UK a global leader in workers' protection and in ensuring the law is not used unethically'. • MPs press for extension of gagging order ban It is beyond doubt that NDAs have been abused, with no more graphic example than that of Weinstein, who, owing to ill health, has been moved from New York's notorious Rikers Island prison to hospital while his appeal is pending. However, the issue is hardly straightforward, as Nikola Southern, a partner at the law firm Kingsley Napley, points out. While 'banning non-disclosure agreements in cases of harassment and discrimination sounds like the right thing to do and many will welcome the change as a major step forward', she warns that the legislative ban could have unintended consequences. 'Many victims of harassment and discrimination — including of sexual harassment — rely on non-disclosure agreements to protect their own interests and identity,' Southern says. She notes that confidentiality can 'work both ways in settlement agreements' and that the imminent statutory changes will mean 'that while poor treatment can be exposed, victims will have less control over what information about them and their experience makes it into the public domain'. As a result, the lawyer argues, some victims might be 'less inclined to raise complaints of harassment and discrimination'. Employment law specialists also raise the concern that businesses will be less inclined to settle claims involving allegations of discrimination or harassment if the comfort of confidentiality is not available. Emily Morrison at the firm SA Law agrees, arguing that the ban 'may seem like a win for transparency — but it risks doing more harm than good'. • Efforts to ban non-disclosure agreements could backfire Morrison maintains that many victims of harassment and discrimination 'opt for confidentiality to avoid the stress, cost and publicity of litigation'. And she says that 'stripping away that option could force them into a lengthy, traumatic tribunal process just to secure redress'. Those with concerns over the looming legislation note that most settlement agreements already allow for whistleblowing and do not prevent employers from addressing underlying issues. Karen Jackson, the director of Didlaw, an employment specialist practice, invokes a colourful analogy, describing workplace litigation as 'ultimately a game of cat and mouse'. Jackson argues that limiting the availability of gagging clauses 'removes the cat's incentive to settle and squashes the mouse entirely'. Jackson argues that the women she has represented 'want confidentiality, they want closure. They don't want to be tainted by their experiences or defined by them, they want to move on.' • Harvey Weinstein found guilty on one charge in rape retrial What lawyers should be doing, the employment law experts say, is to advise alleged victims that confidentiality can be the price of a deal in which they get something in return. 'And if you don't want confidentiality,' Jackson says, 'then you do not have to sign anything. No client of mine has ever signed an agreement under duress: in such a case it would be voidable anyway. If anyone has signed under pressure I blame it on bad lawyering.' After the Weinstein case blew up in 2018 the watchdog in England and Wales, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, issued a warning notice regarding the use of NDAs, which listed a range of public policy exceptions that solicitors were required to include in all employment confidentiality provisions. Euan Lawrence, a partner at Blacks Solicitors, notes that the government's proposed change 'goes significantly further' than that regulatory warning in protecting the workers' right to speak up. 'It covers any allegation, irrespective of whether there is any substance or evidence, relating to the discrimination or harassment — except allegations about reasonable adjustments,' says the lawyer. 'There is no requirement that it be made in the public interest, or even good faith, and it also encompasses allegations made to colleagues or the press.' Still, proponents of tighter legislation remain buoyed by the government's move. Louise Haigh, the former Labour transport secretary, said the announcement meant that 'bad employers can no longer hide behind legal practices that cover up their wrongdoing and prevent victims from getting justice'.
The Guardian
7 days ago
- The Guardian
The law change that could transform toxic workplaces
Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) were created to stop sensitive commercial information being shared. But the MeToo movement – and the crimes of Harvey Weinstein – shone a light on how the contracts were being used to silence victims of workplace abuse. Zelda Perkins was Harvey Weinstein's PA. When she broke the NDA that stopped her from talking about her terrible experiences with the film mogul she helped galvanise the MeToo movement. Since then she has been campaigning against the use of NDAs, which she says have helped cover up abuse in the workplace and allow powerful people to escape the consequences of their actions. Alexandra Topping tells Nosheen Iqbal how widespread the use of NDAs has become in British workplaces and how a change in the law could help put an end to them being misused. She explains how allowing employees to speak out could help change workplace culture for the better.
The Guardian
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Nowhere for them to hide any more': Zelda Perkins' fight against NDAs after Harvey Weinstein
Zelda Perkins was 24 when – exhausted, broken and surrounded by lawyers – she finally agreed to sign the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that would legally gag her from talking about Harvey Weinstein's sexually predatory and abusive behaviour. The suffocating power of that document haunted her for decades, casting a long shadow over her life and making her ill. 'If I go back to that room, I did not ever imagine that it would be possible to reach any form of justice,' she says. Now, eight years since she first broke her NDA and inadvertently became the world's leading campaigner against them, Perkins feels justice may finally be within her grasp. On Monday, in a move that surprised even the most committed campaigners, the UK government announced sweeping measures that will prohibit bosses from using NDAs to silence abused employees. The following day, Perkins is still digesting the news, but her delight is palpable. 'This is huge,' she says. 'It's the beginning of abusers having to change their behaviour – not because somebody's wagging a finger at them, not because they are told to, but because they have to. There's nowhere for them to hide any more, they just have to effing behave themselves.' The government's stance has, she happily admits, gone beyond her expectations. If unchanged, the new measures will protect gig-economy workers as well as staff, requests for NDAs will be able to come only from complainants, not employers, and workers will be given access to legal advice. Crucially, 'non-disparagement clauses' (widely used since non-disclosure became a 'dirty word', says Perkins) will be off the table in cases of abuse. 'It's really, really ambitious; if they actually do what they say they're going to do, it is totally world-leading,' says Perkins, who set up the Can't Buy My Silence campaign in the UK to lead the fight against abusive NDAs in 2021. The campaign argued that while NDAs may be necessary for intellectual property or commercially sensitive information, they have become a routinely used weapon to silence victims of bullying, sexual harassment or abuse, especially in lower-income sectors like retail and hospitality. 'I'm super excited in a way I haven't felt before, because I feel like I can almost smell freedom,' she says. 'But the reality is this is the first step in quite a long parliamentary process. Tomorrow it is absolutely back to the grindstone, because this isn't done yet.' With inclusion and diversity under attack by Donald Trump's administration, the move is also globally significant, Perkins argues. Legislation has changed in more than 27 US states, a Canadian province and the Republic of Ireland – but companies are feeling nervous. Recently, two global corporations who signed up to Can't Buy My Silence's pledge not to use NDAs in cases of abuse, did not want to publicise the fact, for fear of it is being reversed. 'With DEI being rolled back, Britain leading the way here is pretty bloody huge,' she says. 'There's part of me that is scared of highlighting that because I don't want to scare the horses. But essentially, this is actually now much more important than it ever has been.' It is also a moment of huge personal significance. Perkins never wanted to be a campaigner – she just felt, finally, as if she had no other choice. 'I'm the most accidental activist that ever walked the earth,' she says. 'I've literally spent my whole time trying not to do it. 'At 24 when I went to the lawyers, I thought: if I tell the grownups, then they'll sort it out.' She felt the same when she spoke to the New York Times' Jodi Kantor about Weinstein eight years ago, breaking her NDA and sparking a chain reaction that would eventually lead to his incarceration. 'But what I didn't realise in 2017, when I was 45, was that I was a grownup,' she says. 'Because I'd been silent for 23 years, I thought nobody could hear me or see me, and I was stupid. I did not believe that I had any right or power to make any change.' When the change she wanted – even expected – to see didn't happen, she kept going. She enlisted a 'ferocious team of female allies' across the campaigning and political sphere – including, but not limited to, the former Conservative minister Maria Miller, Labour's Jess Phillips and Louise Haigh, and the Liberal Democrats' Layla Moran in the House of Commons, Helena Morrissey and Helena Kennedy in the Lords, the former TUC boss Frances O'Grady in the unions and Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, on the campaign front. She kept going. 'It's funny because everyone goes: 'Oh you're so brave for breaking your NDA' – none of that was brave,' she says. 'I tell you what's brave: every single campaigner getting up every morning when you're on your own and continuing to fight the system with no remuneration, no encouragement, and nobody really there to hold your hand. That's brave.' But there is a reason she, and others, fight on. 'Being able to make change is the biggest, most fulfilling thing any of us can do. We're all looking to be part of a bigger thing,' she says. 'I'm very lucky to have been able to turn something so negative into a positive, because 90% of women who've been in these situations don't get to do that and that's really why this win is much more for them than me.' Still, the fight – and the exposure – took its toll. At the start of the year a series of false dawns had left her disheartened and demoralised. The support of Haigh and a group of high-profile baronesses in the Lords changed the dynamic, but when she got a call from government aides about the amendments on Friday, before a meeting with the business minister Justin Madders on Monday, she expected the worst. 'I was like: 'Oh God, here we go. They want to break it to me softly to make sure that I don't cry in the meeting.'' The news, they assured her, was definitely positive. On Monday she travelled to Westminster and found herself back in a room of power, but this time she was part of it. 'Without sounding woo woo, that has been the healing part,' she says. 'As corny as it sounds, this has made me acknowledge the privilege of living in a democracy. It's tough, and yes, the buttons are sticky and the levers are rusty, but they do actually work.' So what is next for the woman – part of a vanishingly rare breed – who took on power across multiple fronts and actually won? She will, she promises, continue to buzz around the government like a committed gnat, determined to see this through. Then, maybe, a rest. 'Since the story broke in 2017 it's been a maelstrom,' she says. 'Like I was attached to a surfboard but sort of under the water most of the time. I'm now on the surfboard, but really knackered – and I'd just like to get off and go and lie on the beach.'
The Guardian
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘There's nowhere for them to hide any more': Zelda Perkins on Harvey Weinstein and NDAs
Zelda Perkins was 24 when – exhausted, broken and surrounded by lawyers – she finally agreed to sign the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that would legally gag her from talking about Harvey Weinstein's sexually predatory and abusive behaviour. The suffocating power of that document haunted her for decades, casting a long shadow over her life and making her ill. 'If I go back to that room, I did not ever imagine that it would be possible to reach any form of justice,' she says. Now, eight years since she first broke her NDA and inadvertently became the world's leading campaigner against them, Perkins feels like justice may finally be within her grasp. On Monday, in a move that surprised even the most committed campaigners, the UK government announced sweeping measures that will prohibit bosses from using NDAs to silence abused employees. The following day, Perkins is still digesting the news, but her delight is palpable. 'This is huge,' she says. 'It's the beginning of abusers having to change their behaviour – not because somebody's wagging a finger at them, not because they are told to, but because they have to. There's nowhere for them to hide any more, they just have to effing behave themselves.' The government's stance has, she happily admits, gone beyond her expectations. New measures will, if unchanged, protect gig-economy workers as well as staff, requests for NDAs will only be able to come from complainants, not employers, and workers will be given access to legal advice. Crucially 'non-disparagement clauses' (widely used since non-disclosure became a 'dirty word', says Perkins) will also be off the table in cases of abuse. 'It's really, really ambitious; if they actually do what they say they're going to do, it is totally world-leading,' says Perkins, who set up the Can't Buy My Silence campaign in the UK to lead the fight against abusive NDAs in 2021. The campaign argued that while NDAs may be necessary for intellectual property or commercially sensitive information, they have become a routinely used weapon to silence victims of bullying, sexual harassment or abuse, especially in lower-income sectors like retail and hospitality. 'I'm super excited in a way I haven't felt before, because I feel like I can almost smell freedom,' she says. 'But the reality is this is the first step in quite a long parliamentary process. Tomorrow it is absolutely back to the grindstone, because this isn't done yet.' With inclusion and diversity under attack by Donald Trump's administration, the move is also globally significant, Perkins argues. Legislation has changed in more than 27 US states, a Canadian province and the Republic of Ireland – but companies are feeling nervous. Recently, two global corporations who signed up to Can't Buy My Silence's pledge not to use NDAs in cases of abuse, did not want to publicise the fact, for fear of it is being reversed. 'With DEI being rolled back, Britain leading the way here is pretty bloody huge,' she says. 'There's part of me that is scared of highlighting that because I don't want to scare the horses. But essentially, this is actually now much more important than it ever has been.' It is also a moment of huge personal significance. Perkins never wanted to be a campaigner, she just felt, finally, like she had no other choice. 'I'm the most accidental activist that ever walked the earth,' she says. 'I've literally spent my whole time trying not to do it. 'At 24 when I went to the lawyers, I thought, if I tell the grownups, then they'll sort it out.' She felt the same when she spoke to the New York Times' Jodi Kantor about Weinstein eight years ago, breaking her NDA and sparking a chain reaction that would eventually lead to his incarceration. 'But what I didn't realise in 2017, when I was 45, was that I was a grownup,' she says. 'Because I'd been silent for 23 years, I thought nobody could hear me or see me, and I was stupid. I did not believe that I had any right or power to make any change.' When the change she wanted – even expected – to see didn't happen, however, she kept going. She enlisted a 'ferocious team of female allies' across the campaigning and political sphere – including, but not limited to, the former Conservative minister Maria Miller, Labour's Jess Phillips and Louise Haigh, and the Liberal Democrats' Layla Moran in the House of Commons, Helena Morrissey and Helena Kennedy in the Lords, former TUC boss Frances O'Grady in the unions and Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, on the campaign front. She kept going. 'It's funny because everyone goes 'oh you're so brave for breaking your NDA' – none of that was brave,' she says. 'I tell you what's brave – every single campaigner getting up every morning when you're on your own and continuing to fight the system with no remuneration, no encouragement, and nobody really there to hold your hand. That's brave.' But there is a reason she, and others, fight on. 'Being able to make change is the biggest, most fulfilling thing any of us can do. We're all looking to be part of a bigger thing,' she says. 'I'm very lucky to have been able to turn something so negative into a positive, because 90% of women who've been in these situations don't get to do that and that's really why this win is much more for them than me.' Still, the fight – and the exposure – took its toll. At the start of the year a series of false dawns had left her disheartened and demoralised. The support of Haigh and a group of high profile baronesses in the Lords changed the dynamic, but when she got a call from government aides about the amendments on Friday, ahead of a meeting with the business minister Justin Madders on Monday, she expected the worst. 'I was like, 'Oh God, here we go. They want to break it to me softly to make sure that I don't cry in the meeting.''. The news, they assured her, was definitely positive. On Monday she travelled to Westminster and found herself back in a room of power, but this time, she was part of it. 'Without sounding woo woo, that has been the healing part,' she says. 'As corny as it sounds, this has made me acknowledge the privilege of living in a democracy. It's tough, and yes, the buttons are sticky and the levers are rusty, but they do actually work.' So what is next for the woman – part of a vanishingly rare breed – who took on power across multiple fronts and actually won? She will, she promises, continue to buzz around the government like a committed gnat, determined to see this through. Then, maybe, a rest. 'Since the story broke in 2017 it's been a maelstrom,' she says. 'Like I was attached to a surfboard but sort of under the water most of the time. I'm now on the surfboard, but really knackered – and I'd just like to get off and go and lie on the beach.'
BBC News
08-07-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Non-disclosure agreements gagging workers to be banned
Employers will be banned from using non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to silence victims of workplace sexual misconduct or discrimination, the government has said. An amendment to the Employment Rights Bill, which is expected to become law later this year, will void any confidentiality agreements seeking to prevent workers from speaking about allegations of harassment or discrimination. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said it was "time we stamped this practice out". The use of NDAs to cover up criminality has been in the headlines ever since Zelda Perkins, a former assistant to Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood mogul and now convicted sex offender, broke her agreement to accuse him of abuse. More recently, the now deceased Mohamed Al Fayed, who used to own Harrods, was accused of deploying confidentiality clauses to silence women who accused him of rape and abuse. An NDA is a legally binding document that protects confidential information between two parties. They can be used to protect intellectual property or other commercially sensitive information but over the years their uses have spread. Ms Perkins began campaigning for a change in the law more than seven years ago when she spoke out against Weinstein. She now runs the campaign group Can't Buy My Silence UK and said the amendment marked a ''huge milestone'' and that it showed the government had ''listened and understood the abuse of power taking place". Though she told the BBC's Today Programme: "Let's see what comes out in the actual details". She said "the real horror" of NDAs was that "the law protected the powerful person in the room, not the victims of a sexual crime". Ms Perkins said many of these agreements designed to silence victims would be unenforceable in court but they work because many victims do not know that. "Because of the nature of an NDA, no-one gets to see it. So they can say anything to make the victim afraid to speak," she said. The change in the law would bring the UK in line with Ireland, the US, and some provinces in Canada, which have banned such agreements from being used to prevent the disclosure of sexual harassment and discrimination. Employment rights minister Justin Madders said there was "misuse of NDAs to silence victims", which he called "an appalling practice". "These amendments will give millions of workers confidence that inappropriate behaviour in the workplace will be dealt with, not hidden, allowing them to get on with building a prosperous and successful career," he added. Peers will debate the amendments when the Employment Rights Bill returns to the House of Lords on 14 July and, if passed, will need to be approved by MPs as well.
