Why did city officials sign Non-Disclosure Agreements?
GGP is a publicly-traded company and until plans can be made public according to SEC rules and regulations, confidential information must not be released. Although the City was generally aware that GGP was working on plans for the redevelopment of the mall, for proprietary reasons, GGP was unwilling to share that information with City officials. After repeated requests, GGP agreed to allow City officials to review the plans, provided that those officials signed a non-disclosure agreement, agreeing not to disclose that information until GGP was ready to make a public announcement of its plans. By so doing, City officials were given a unique opportunity to be involved in the planning from the early stages to help ensure that the City’s concerns were met and planned for during the process. The alternative to this would have been leaving the elected city representatives (and consequently their constituents) in the dark until the plans were completed, thus having no City input.
