John Jonas explains why NDAs with Filipino contractors are hard to enforce in U.S. courts, but still worth using because Filipino workers respect signed agreements. He walks through your actual options: contact OnlineJobs.ph support, report to the Philippines Department of Justice, or hire a local lawyer.
Questions this episode answers
225
December 27, 2022
$99
Contact OnlineJobs.ph support (referred to as 'onlinejobs ph supportlinejobs ph')
OnlineJobs.ph (referred to as 'onlinejobs PH hiringdocs hiringdocs')
Chapters
Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at working with OFS online Filipino specialists. This is episode 225. Can you enforce an NDA with an OFS? So let me start this with a personal story about this. So my kids are pretty entrepreneurial. At least a couple of them are pretty entrepreneurial. I don't really know about the other ones yet. They're still pretty young. But one of my kids runs a pretty successful local business, and actually he's now serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So he's out of the country for two years and actually he got assigned to go to the Philippines, which is so crazy to me. So he's in the Philippines right now. He's not around to run that business. So his sister, one of my other daughter, is running that business. And between them, they have invented all kinds of contracts and things that people sign. They doing all kinds of things for what they're selling. And it's been really interesting to see them create these contracts and try and protect themselves and try and solve problems that they have when people buy things and they want to come back or whatever it is. So they have these contracts and it's been really interesting. They haven't had to enforce anything yet other than like, hey, I want to return this. Well, sorry, you can't return that. Like, you sign this contract saying, this isn't part of it. So that's. That's been interesting for me. On my. On my side, I try and stay out of their business as much as I can, except that they are still teenagers and they leave their contracts all over my workspaces, which is so obnoxious to me. But it's better than. It's better that they're entrepreneurial and they have this entrepreneurial mindset and they're working hard and I'll deal with the mess even though I don't want them to. Even though I don't want to deal with it. I want them to clean up their messes. But sometimes that's part of being a dad. So for the Philippines, I get asked all the time to provide an NDA or an employment contract or something like that for employers hiring people in the Philippines. And along with this, they also often ask, can you enforce a contract? And sometimes I'm the one who asks, can you enforce a contract? And the short answer is really no. So from our perspective, any contract that involves people outside of US Jurisdiction, you don't really have any right. Over those people in what they signed. So if you want to enforce the contract, you have to go to the Philippines to enforce it or you have to enforce it under Philippines law. So enforcing an NDA isn't like super enforceable. I'll talk about that in a second. However, if you have information, proprietary information or protected information that you need to sign an NDA, you should have them sign an NDA. Also, just because I say it's hard to enforce this doesn't mean that you shouldn't hire an OFS because of it. So listen to this. Getting an OFS to sign an NDA is actually a really good idea because their culture values authority and contracts present authority. So they are very obedient to what the law says, to what their people in authority say to them. And a contract provides that law and it provides them an agreement with someone in authority you, and they're very, very, very likely to put a lot of weight towards that contract that you have them sign that NDA or that employment contract because they signed it and it comes from a place of authority. So while it's difficult to enforce, it's actually really, really beneficial to you towards getting them to do things the way that you want them to do. So also, enforcing a contract is difficult, but it's not impossible. So there's a couple options. One, if you have proof that they broke, they did something wrong with you, contact us at onlinejobs ph supportlinejobs ph and we'll work through it with you. We're not gonna. We're not gonna give you money back from what? From the damage that they caused or something, but we very well may ban them permanently from onlinejobs ph. There are some recourse there. Another option is for you to contact the Philippines Department of Justice. So theft laws in the Philippines are strict. Digital theft laws usually carry double the punishment, and it's a really big deal. And so in enforcing that for you, you can't really enforce it, but you could contact the Department of Justice. You could also pretty reasonably hire a lawyer in the Philippines. You can find them on onlinejobs Ph. It's not that hard. And you could try and prosecute someone that way. I'm not qualified to give you any legal advice, but finding a lawyer in the Philippines who is. Is really, really easy. And they could take the case for you and do the prosecution for you in the end. I have never been in the situation where I felt a need to enforce a contract with someone, but we do make contracts available that are really, really well done and they're available at onlinejobs PH hiringdocs hiringdocs where we'll provide you like short, medium and long term contracts and employment agreements and all kinds of other things that come with this package. It's $99 and it will get you all the documents you need to get started hiring someone. To me, the NDA doesn't carry a lot of weight in terms of enforceability, but it does carry a lot of weight in terms of how someone will behave because they signed that ND.
