--- title: "You May Not Tell Your Own Board What You Heard" dek: "Clause 7 is the famous one, and a lawyer called it mild. Clause 11 stops a participant telling their own board what they heard. We got the paperwork from someone who refused to sign it." kind: investigation (Investigation) desk: Shadow Governance author: Marcus Oyelaran (fictional) published: 2026-07-04T08:00:00Z url: https://theyburied.com/article/davos-attendee-nda tags: summits, confidentiality, Davos, contracts, transparency genre: satire status: fiction — nothing in this story happened; every person, source and document is invented --- # You May Not Tell Your Own Board What You Heard *Clause 7 is the famous one, and a lawyer called it mild. Clause 11 stops a participant telling their own board what they heard. We got the paperwork from someone who refused to sign it.* The invitation arrives with paperwork. Four pages, single-spaced, twelve clauses, and a signature block. This newspaper spent two months looking for someone who had received it and *not* signed, because a source who has signed is a source we would be asking to breach a contract we had read. > **Figure:** Who clause 11 stops you telling — see https://theyburied.com/article/davos-attendee-nda Dr. Ingrid Halvorsen-Bassey declined her invitation in February, for reasons of her own that predate any contact with us, and gave us the whole pack. ## Clause 7 This is the famous one. It is quoted, usually inaccurately, in most coverage of gatherings of this kind, and it says roughly what everybody thinks it says: participants may describe what was discussed but may not attribute any statement to any individual or institution. It is the Chatham House rule with more words, and Marisa Okondo-Pryce — the contract lawyer this newspaper paid $3,100 to read the document — called it "entirely standard and, frankly, mild." ## Clause 11 Clause 11 is not standard. It binds the participant not to "characterise, summarise, or represent the tenor of any session to any body of which the participant is an officer, employee, member, or fiduciary." Read plainly, a minister may not describe the tenor of a session to their own ministry. A board member may not describe it to their own board. "That is a very unusual clause and I would advise a client not to sign it," Ms Okondo-Pryce wrote. "Not because it is sinister. Because it is almost certainly unenforceable against a fiduciary, and my client would be signing a promise they may be legally obliged to break the following Tuesday." Her opinion, in full, is available from the desk. > A finance minister who cannot think aloud in a room will read a prepared statement in that room, which is of no use to anyone. > > — the forum secretariat ## Why she declined Dr. Halvorsen-Bassey was asked, and answered at more length than we can print, and asked that the substance be kept. She declined because of clause 11, and specifically because she sits on the governing board of a development institution that would be entitled to know what she had heard. "I am not making a point about secrecy," she said. "I have signed confidentiality agreements for thirty years. I decline this one because it asks me to keep something from the people I am legally answerable to, and the answer to that is no, and it is a boring no, and nobody made a fuss about it." Asked why she gave the pack to a newspaper, she was equally undramatic: "Because you asked, and because I am not bound by it, and because it seems to me that a document sent to several hundred people every year is not a secret and everybody has been treating it like one." ## The response The secretariat's answer, printed in full below, does three things worth noticing. It confirms the document. It defends clause 7 on grounds this newspaper thinks are serious and has printed without a rejoinder. And it concedes clause 11 — says the drafting is old, that it has never been enforced, that it will be redrafted for 2027, and that the redraft will be published. We will report the redraft when it appears, including if it is worse. ## Sources (invented) - Dr. Ingrid Halvorsen-Bassey, Development economist; invited delegate, declined — Interviewed in person in Geneva; supplied the invitation pack and consented to be named (3 June 2026) - Marisa Okondo-Pryce, Contract lawyer, retained by this newspaper to read the agreement — Written opinion, commissioned and paid for ($3,100) (Opinion dated 19 June 2026) - The forum's secretariat, Written questions — Submitted 22 June 2026; response received 9 July (June–July 2026) - Two former delegates, Named in our notes; both signed the agreement in prior years — Telephone; both spoke about the document's existence but not its contents (June 2026) ## What we could not confirm - Whether this version of the agreement is the current one. It is the one sent to our source in 2026 and the secretariat has not disputed its authenticity. - How many invited delegates decline. We asked; the secretariat said it does not publish that figure and would not give it to us. ## Right of reply **The forum secretariat** (Responded on 9 July 2026. Statement printed in full and unedited.): > The document is genuine and is sent to every invited participant. We are content for it to be public and would have sent you a copy had you asked us, which you did not. > > We would make two points. > > The agreement's purpose is narrow and is stated in its own recitals: participants must be able to describe a position they do not hold in order to test it. A finance minister who cannot think aloud in a room will read a prepared statement in that room, which is of no use to anyone. > > On clause 11: your lawyer is correct that it is drafted broadly, and we accept that the drafting is older than the current secretariat. It has never been enforced against any participant, journalist, or third party in the forum's history, and we would not enforce it. We are asking counsel to redraft it for 2027 and we will publish the redraft. --- They Buried is a satirical newspaper. Every story, source, document and person in it is invented. It reports from a fictional world in which the conspiracy theories are true, with the method of a real daily.