Mutual Nondisclosure Agreements vs. Unilateral Nondisclosure Agreements

Discover the difference between unilateral and mutual non-disclosure agreements.

A nondisclosure agreement might be unilateral or mutual in nature. Only one party discloses sensitive information to another under a Unilateral Nondisclosure Agreement. For example, one business may be seeking bids for project work. The corporation requesting work would have secret information provided in the project specs, but the companies submitting bids could just be disclosing publicly accessible information, such as their publicized rates and expertise.

Both parties share secret information that they wish to keep private in a Mutual Nondisclosure Agreement. Two firms, for example, may be exploring a joint venture. To determine whether or whether they should collaborate, each corporation would have to share information about their organization and previous strategy.