The drama surrounding the fate of The Weinstein Company is finally over as the company has filed for voluntary bankruptcy and agreed to sell its assets to an equity firm. In the months since The New York Times and The New Yorker first made public the sexual misconduct of cofounder Harvey Weinstein, there have been several attempts to sell the company. The most recent one, which would have installed an almost all-female board of directors, fell apart at the last minute.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the bankruptcy filing is the news that the company is canceling all of the existing nondisclosure agreements that prevented women from speaking out about abuse suffered at the hands of Harvey Weinstein, according to NPR.
"Today the Company also takes an important step toward justice for any victims who have been silenced by Harvey Weinstein. Since October, it has been reported that Harvey Weinstein used nondisclosure agreements as a secret weapon to silence his accusers.
Effective immediately, those "agreements" end. The Company expressly releases any confidentiality provision to the extent it has prevented individuals who suffered or witnessed any form of sexual misconduct by Harvey Weinstein from telling their stories. No one should be afraid to speak out or coerced to stay quiet. The Company thanks the courageous individuals who have already come forward. Your voices have inspired a movement for change across the country and around the world."
This is fantastic news for any women who feared legal and financial repercussions if they wanted to tell their stories and, hopefully, will allow them some measure of closure, should they want to go on the record with what happened to them.
New York's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, who had previously filed a lawsuit against the company, agreed, releasing a statement supporting the decision: "This is a watershed moment for efforts to address the corrosive effects of sexual misconduct in the workplace. The Weinstein Company's agreement to release victims of and witnesses to sexual misconduct from nondisclosure agreements—which my office has sought throughout this investigation and litigation—will finally enable voices that have for too long been muzzled to be heard."
