Q: Is compensation needed to make a standard one way nda valid?
A: It is likely you need consideration, not necessarily compensation, for a NDA to be enforceable. Consideration can come in many forms, including new "employment" or seeing the business plan of a new company.
A: Greetings. Your inquiry touches upon the legal idea of consideration in enforceable contracts. The idea essentially says that for a promise to be enforceable something must be given for it. Note however that the "something" can be essentially anything, whether small or big, valuable or invaluable, even an idea can be consideration. "Absent a claim of fraud or unconscionability, the adequacy of consideration is not a proper subject for judicial scrutiny." Spaulding v. Benenati, 57 N.Y.2d 418 (1982). Furthermore, "not enough consideration" is not equivalent to "no consideration;" consideration "need not be coextensive or even proportionate, so long as the value of the thing forborne or promised is acceptable to the promise." Fid. New York FSB v. Madden, 212 A.D.2d 572 (2d Dep't 1995). Thus, so long as the other party is doing something (in the case of one way NDAs: opening doors to secret information), consideration will not be questioned by the courts.
Gregory Byrnes agrees with this answer
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