Mahesh Vaidya- Legal Advisor

  Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) -Myths & Concerns During our interactions with new Entrepreneurs, we have many times come across situations where the Entrepreneurs enter into and continue to do business transactions with their customers merely on the basis of a Non-Disclosure Agreement executed between the parties with a firm belief and myth that there is an NDA and so there is no need to execute any other document for carrying out business transactions. The notion that an NDA is sufficient to cover all business transactions and protect an entrepreneur from any known as well as unknown exposure is the biggest myth and concern that new Entrepreneurs never realize despite our repeated warnings. One needs to understand that the NDA is a document that just protects confidential/proprietary information of the parties to the business transaction and NOTHING MORE. Other than the above an NDA does not in any way protect either party from any business / financial risk or exposu...

What is a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)?   When an entrepreneur shifts his customer base from individual customers to corporate customers, this is starting point of this new type of relationship. For an organization to be registered as a “Registered Vendor”, corporate entities will often require the organization to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (commonly known as an “NDA” ) along with various other documents. An NDA can be considered the most celebrated document executed by the majority of new/upcoming entrepreneurs. However, often NDAs are executed by signing “on the dotted lines” without reading or understanding any provisions contained in the document. It is always presented as “a mere document to start a relationship” whereas, on the contrary, it may contain serious complications/implications. An NDA certainly must be signed as a starting point of a relationship to protect and maintain the confidentiality of important confidential/proprietary information of both pa...

Documentation related to various Business Structures As we have seen in my first series of Articles, in the process of evolution of a business, any Entrepreneur’s initial customers are his “friends and relatives” and gradually, as the business grows, the Entrepreneur extends the sale of his goods and services to the “Society”. In this journey, every Entrepreneur executes various documents to cover the legal and commercial aspects of the business transactions. We shall now look into some of these documents which an Entrepreneur normally enters into to cover all such transactions. List of documentation that is normally executed. 1.        Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) 2.        Proposal   3.        Purchase Order (PO)   4.        Agreement 5.        Master Services Agreement (MSA) Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)...

Business Structures In my previous series, we have done an analysis of the various stages through which a business organization goes through in its evolution journey. Hereafter we shall focus on various types of business structures, industries in which an Entrepreneur operates, and the legal provisions that an Entrepreneur needs to understand and incorporate in contractual documentation to protect his/her interests in the best possible manner. The choice of business structure for any start-up has a long-lasting effect on the way in which it is run, its operations, hiring of employees, renting of business place, tax considerations, and so on. As a start-up entrepreneur, you need to analyze all the above aspects before starting a business. Most Popular Types of Business Structures There are various types of organizations we come across in an economy. Their structures depend upon the nature of the business, the quantum of capital invested, human resources involved, territorial...