“Welcome to the most un-PC event of the year,” he roared
At 10pm last Thursday night, Jonny Gould took to the stage in the ballroom at London’s Dorchester Hotel. “Welcome to the most un-PC event of the year,” he roared. The sports broadcaster was there to host a charity auction — the centrepiece of a secretive annual event, the Presidents Club Charity Dinner.
The purpose is to – wink wink – raise money for Good Causes…but – nudge nudge – not really.
It’s for men only; the “entertainment” included 130 women who were told to wear “skimpy black outfits with matching underwear and high heels.” At a party afterwards, to the astonishment of everyone, many of the women were groped and propositioned.
The event has been a big deal for 33 years but it’s flown under the radar, presumably because the riffraff haven’t been allowed within a mile of it. The FT sent a couple of reporters to work undercover as hostesses. During the six hour event many of the hostesses were the target of “groping, lewd comments and repeated requests to join diners in bedrooms” in the oh so posh Dorchester.
The agency that hired the women warned them that they would likely face “annoying” men and that for some it’s a job they never want to do again. They’re given instructions on sexy makeup and hair and shoes. When they arrive on the day, guess what’s the first thing they have to do.
Sign a five page non-disclosure agreement without being allowed to read it or keep a copy.
But hey, it raises a lot of money for charity, so who cares how it goes about it, eh?
H/t Screechy Monkey
Surely the non-disclosure, especially sprung on them at short notice with no legal advice, would be regarded as null and void? Also, this attitude (from the model agency head) that a certain calibre of person would under no circumstances act like an entitled wanker, well…
I would sure as hell hope so. An NDA they were not allowed to read had BETTER be null and void.
Yeah. And of course, if the org wants to press that angle, the first thing they’ll have to do is turn over a copy of the NDA to the Financial Times, who will likely rush it to print ASAP, so really, that’s just going to make them look worse.
There’s a trend I’ve noticed with all sorts of ‘closed’ organizations. They often–perhaps even usually–start out fine. The idea is that the group is just there to relax without being on their guard all the time. But eventually, someone inches a toe over the line, and either the organization snaps to attention immediately to deal with it, or everyone just decides to overlook it. In the all-too-common latter case, whatever that behavior was then quickly becomes the new norm, because a precedent has been established. And then, someone else pushes a bit past the new line. And it’s even easier for everyone to just overlook it. And so on, and so on. And eventually, you get a story like this, or like Tailhook, or any of the hundreds of scandals in the interim. And inevitably, the people in charge at the time are left standing around with confused expressions. After all, they inherited the group or event, and it had only gotten a little bit worse than last year, right?
Someday, maybe we’ll learn that secrecy breeds rot.
Did they have a minute of silence for Jimmy Saville?
IAMNAL but I suspect the legal standing of the NDA was irrelevant. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the document was riddled with legalistically-flawed language. I suspect it was crafted for one purpose: for intimidation. The “contract” probably entails things like impossible fines (and dire consequences for failure to pay: yielding possession of all property, garnishment of all future wages, etc), imprisonment for crime of breach of contract, etc. And the strategy probably centered not around the NDA’s legal standing, but rather to allow a scary lawyer-y person to wave such clauses in the face of any woman who ever considered going public.
I think Kevin K is right. The value of these NDAs is based on the fear of litigation, not their validity.
Makes sense. Evil sense.