Legal Protection for Confidential Information in International Oil and Gas Contracts

Abstract

Abstract Oil and gas contracts often hold exclusive technical information and business knowledge. Therefore, governments and International oil companies put confidentiality clauses in their contracts which forbid the disclosure of the contracts. This paper explains confidential information and the basic requirements for this information in order to make it confidence. It attempts to answer the questions: What are confidential clauses? How is a party liable for a breach of confidence over the information? The paper shows that in the event of breach of the confidential information, a number of defences and remedies are available in the oil and gas contracts.The research methods are adopted in this study include the analysis method and the legal method. The research questions are answered through extensive study of the relevant literature and based on statutes and case law.