Intellectual Property Rights agreement and Confidentiality

[aj1977]

As a part of my first contract the agency is asking me to sign
the client's Intellectual Property Rights agreement and Confidentiality forms Is it normal.The agency asky myself to sign it in the capacity of the contractor but i think that needs to be signed in my capacity as the business.i.e the my company has to enter into this agreement and not myself as suspect this might look like an IR35 issue...any pointers?

[cojak]

You sign on behalf of YourCo.

[tim123]

You sign on behalf of YourCo.

No you don´t.

It is the individual worker who has the means to "spill the beans" as it were, the company would find this hard to achieve. And it is also pointless prosecuting a company if it does break the agreement, it is only the individual worker who can `suffer´ a penalty in these circumstances.

Thus it is the individual worker who has to sign.

And no, it isn`t an IR35 pointer, it is a perfectly normal business practice.

[Bluebird]

No you don´t.

It is the individual worker who has the means to "spill the beans" as it were, the company would find this hard to achieve. And it is also pointless prosecuting a company if it does break the agreement, it is only the individual worker who can `suffer´ a penalty in these circumstances.

Thus it is the individual worker who has to sign.

And no, it isn`t an IR35 pointer, it is a perfectly normal business practice.

Quite right, if you were a consultant for a BIG consultancy it's still you who would sign not the CONSULTANTCY.

[thunderlizard]

You'd sign personally for the confidentiality.

The IPR thing is different. For copyright, if you're an employee of YourCo, then any copyrights resulting from your work in the course of your employment would automatically vest in YourCo. It's up to YourCo to assign them to the client - which if it's being paid for your time is probably fair enough.
Moral rights (e.g. the right to be identified as the author) you keep as an individual person, and they can't be assigned.