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In the TV show Succession, Ep 1, Season 1, Roman Roy teases a boy by promising one million dollars if this boy could hit a home run in a baseball game. It ends up with Roman tearing up the one million dollar check into pieces in front of the boy.

Logan Roy sends his lawyer over to the boy and his parents, and offers them one million dollars if they sign a non-disclosure agreement.

I am wondering how this will play out for the Roys. The objective is to prevent this immature and childish display of the Roys going public and attracting negative public perception, which may negatively impact their reputation and share price. But as we know, this boy will gladly tell his friends about this whole incident, so there is no way to prevent it from going public. It will be a matter of time for the news media to catch up with this.

I am wondering if signing a non-disclosure agreement prevents any news media from publishing it, even if they learn about it.

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    This is probably a question better answered on the Law stack. Basically, an NDA is a contract where one party gets confidentiality and the other gets some other benefit, such as money, a job, etc. If the information in the NDA is revealed, then the party that received confidentiality can sue for breach of that contract. An NDA never ensures the information is kept secret, only that there are consequences for revealing it.
    – Todd Wilcox
    Mar 29 at 12:29
  • Not the focus of the question, but Logan doesn't offer them one million for signing the NDA. They're shown with the watch Tom gave Logan for his birthday. Which Sheev earlier in the episode said should "looks like 10 to 15 grand's worth". So probably closer to that.
    – Shmuel Newmark
    Mar 30 at 7:42
  • @ShmuelNewmark, you are right. I missed it
    – Yu Zhang
    Mar 30 at 9:57

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I'm not going to attempt to anticipate how this may go in any plot, but the person signing the NDA [or their parent/guardian*] is the one liable for damages if they disclose information covered by the NDA. Those to whom it is disclosed have no such limitation.

This is heavily impacted by onus of proof as to where the 'leak' actually occurred & whether or not you can get away with the movie trope of "a reporter never reveals his source."

*I'm not even certain you could enforce an NDA on a minor - as they are by definition not yet capable of knowing 'right from wrong'.

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    Nor or they capable of entering into a contract. IANAL
    – Dennis Williamson
    Mar 29 at 16:57
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    Well, yes & no - their P/G can sign some things on their behalf but I really don't know to what extent, or even under what jurisdiction…but IANAL either, nor have I played one on TV, to my recollection ;)
    – Tetsujin
    Mar 29 at 16:59
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    I wouldn't call "a reporter never reveals his source." a "movie trope".
    – Bergi
    Mar 30 at 0:12
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    There has been a case of a couple signing an NDA for a significant amount of money. Their teenage daughter then posted online about how much her family was getting from the company. A judge ruled that this broke the NDA and they either didn't receive the money or had to return it.
    – Michael Richardson
    Mar 30 at 14:12

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