Descrizione
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For several years a growing number of documents called “Non-circumvention & Non-disclosure Agreements”, “NC&ND Agreements”, “Commission Protection Guarantee”, or similar names, have been circulating among business firms engaged in international trade. Such agreements mainly cover situations where an occasional intermediary, who under takes to provide certain services (e.g., communication of potential customers’ names, promotion of business), desires to be protected against the risk of being “circumvented” by the other party (and, consequently, not being paid for his services).
Since it appeared that there is need for a model contract covering this situation, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) decided in 1999 to draft a “Model occasional intermediary contract— Non-circumvention & Non-disclosure Agreement” (Publication 619) to which parties engaged in international trade could make reference for contracts of this type.
This initiative intended at the same time to react against an abusive practice consisting in presenting certain NCND agreements ICC products, such as, for instance, “ICC Covenant for Non-circumven tion & Non-disclosure”, “ICC Non-circumvention & Non-disclosure Agree ment” or “ICC NCND”. In certain cases reference has been made to non-existent ICC rules said to govern such an agree ment (e.g., “ICC non-circumvention and non-disclosure rules”, “ICC 400 rules”, “International Chamber of Commerce Convention”). Most of these model agreements which can be found on the Internet are poorly drafted and do not adequately protect the respective interests of the parties.
By publishing, in the year 2000, the ICC Model Occasional Intermediary Contract (Non-circum vention & Non-disclosure agreement) which contains in part B a set of rules named “ICC General Conditions for Non-circumvention & Non-disclosure Agreements”, the ICC has officially established its own NCND Rules which automatically replace those of any document NCND agreement which refers to the ICC. This may give parties who inadvertently sign one of the above “fake” agreements, the possibility of invoking the application of to the ICC rules, which provide a fair and balanced contractual framework.
When updating this model contract it has been decided to take into account the growing diffusion of the term “NCND” and thus to change the main title of this model from “Occasional Intermediary Contract” to “Non-circumvention & Non-disclosure Agreement” and to put the term “Occasional Intermediary Contract” in the second part of the title. This inversion of title and sub-title should make the NCND agreement more recognizable, but does not change the substance of the matter, since a party providing a service under an NCND agreement is and remains an occasional intermediary.
AVVISO IMPORTANTE
Da molto tempo circolano nel mondo degli scambi internazionali (riprese anche da vari siti internet) clausole di riservatezza attribuite falsamente alla ICC che recano diciture del tipo: “International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Non-circumvention/non-disclosure agreement and working agreement”.
Nel testo si dice che dette clausole sono regolate dalla “convention” o pubblicazione n. 600 (oppure 500, oppure 400) della ICC. Dette clausole, che sono spurie in quanto non redatte dalla ICC, sono assolutamente nulle, pertanto di nessuna protezione per le parti che le hanno stipulate; infatti la citata pubblicazione 600 (oppure 500, oppure 400) contiene le norme che regolano esclusivamente i rapporti tra banche e loro clienti in presenza di un’apertura di credito documentario (v. elenco pubblicazioni).
Questo dimostra l’infondatezza del loro valore giuridico e l’ignoranza di chi le ha redatte e le mette in circolo. La clausola autentica di “Non-circumvention and Non-disclosure agreement” è contenuta nella pubbl. n. 619 “ICC Model Occasional Intermediary Contract”, che prevede l’impegno delle parti in un contratto di intermediazione occasionale a non divulgare le informazioni confidenziali di cui possono venire a conoscenza nel contesto del contratto stesso.
La ICC ha inoltre redatto un modello di accordo di riservatezza contenente un’apposita clausola tipo che può essere applicata a vari tipi di contratto.
