The £12m question: how WikiLeaks gags its own staff

“A typical open market valuation.”

This blog has previously described the bizarre legal world of WikiLeaks where, for example, the organisation claims some form of commercial ownership over the information that has been leaked to it.

Today, the New Statesman can reveal the extent of this legal eccentricity as we publish a copy of the draconian and extraordinary legal gag that WikiLeaks imposes on its own staff.

Clause 5 of this “Confidentiality Agreement” (PDF) imposes a penalty of “£12,000,000 – twelve million pounds sterling” on anyone who breaches this legal gag.

This ludicrous – and undoubtedly unenforceable – amount is even based on “a typical open-market valuation” for the leaked information that WikiLeaks possesses.

This phraseology is consistent with WikliLeaks’s perception of itself as a commercial organisation in the business of owning and selling leaked information. Indeed, there is no other sensible way of interpreting this penalty clause.

Other parts of the legal gag are just as extraordinary. The second recital paragraph, “B”, provides that – like a superinjunction – the fact of the legal gag itself is subject to the gag.

So is “all newsworthy information relating to the workings of WikiLeaks”. On the face of it, even revealing one is under this agreement could result in a £12m penalty, as would sharing information on how the directors conduct the organisation.

The fifth recital paragraph, “E”, is just as astonishing. It purports to extend what WikiLeaks can sue for beyond any direct loss that it might suffer if the gag is breached. WikiLeaks says it can sue for both “loss of opportunity to sell the information to other news broadcasters and publishers” and “loss of value of the information”.

All this legalese can only mean that WikiLeaks takes the commercial aspect of selling “its” information seriously: there would be no other reason for this document to have such precise, onerous and unusual provisions.

On the basis of this legal gag alone, it would be fair to take the view that WikiLeaks is nothing other a highly commercially charged enterprise, seeking to protect and maximise its earnings from selling information that has been leaked to it. If so, WikiLeaks is nothing other than a business.

One suspects that the various brave and well-intentioned people who have provided the leaked information would be quite unaware of – and perhaps horrified by – the express commercial intentions of WikiLeaks, as evidenced by this document.

However, for some time it has been apparent that WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, have had a “pick’n’mix” attitude to legal obligations. They seem to feel free from any restrictions in respect of confidentiality and official secrecy; but on the other hand they make routine legal threats, especially against the Guardian, so as to uphold their perceived rights to their supposed commercial “property” – leaked, sensitive information. Abidance by the law is, it would seem, something for other people.

And, as the legal gag shows, WikiLeaks sought to use the full force of the law to deter or punish anyone who leaks against it – to the tune of £12m a time.

David Allen Green is legal correspondent of the New Statesman and is a practising media lawyer. He was shortlisted for the George Orwell Prize for blogging in 2010.