Washington, D.C. — The American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement after the New York State Senate voted 62-0 to pass S545, a bill to ban nondisclosure agreements in corporate subsidy deals.

“Large corporations such as Amazon, in New York and across the country, use corrupt non-disclosure agreements to extract funds from communities without local workers or businesses having any say in the matter,” said Pat Garofalo, Director of State and Local Policy at the American Economic Liberties Project. “By banning these secret deals, S545 will ensure New Yorkers are not subjected to this offensive and anti-democratic practice. We applaud Deputy Senate Majority Leader Michael Gianaris for his steadfast leadership on this issue, urge the New York Assembly to quickly pass the bill, and hope that other states soon follow New York’s example.”

The American Economic Liberties Project is a founding member of Ban Secret Deals, a bipartisan coalition to eliminate nondisclosure agreements in economic development deals.

To learn more about the ways NDA-covered economic development deals harm local communities, read “Ban Secret Deals: How Secret Corporate Subsidy Deals Harm Communities and What to Do About It” and visit BanSecretDeals.Org.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.