Washington, D.C. — As part of the Federal Trade Commission’s call for information related to contract terms that harm fair competition, the American Economic Liberties Project today submitted a formal comment to the agency focused on the ways non-disclosure agreements impede government accountability and public involvement in local economic policymaking.

“It has become commonplace for dominant corporations to demand that local officials sign non-disclosure agreements preventing them from divulging details about corporate subsidy deals,” said Pat Garofalo, Director of State and Local Policy at the American Economic Liberties Project. “These agreements make it easier for those corporations to extract resources from local communities, thus entrenching their dominance while harming the public and other local businesses. The FTC is uniquely positioned to study this problem and pull back the curtain on one of corporate America’s most pernicious practices.”

Economic Liberties’ comment builds on recent research that details how corporations and local elected leaders collude to hide pro-corporate practices and policies from the public. It also cites examples in states ranging from Tennessee to Indiana to New York to clearly explain how the restrictions on the public available information hurts workers, taxpayers, and small businesses.

Due to the harms that often come with NDAs, Economic Liberties’s comment calls on the FTC to open an investigation, produce a public report on NDAs and to apply remedies where appropriate.

Read the full FTC comment here.

Learn more by reading “None of Our Business? How Corporate Power Corrupts Local Economies and Democracies” and “How Amazon, Google and Other Companies Exploit NDAs.”

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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.