system: You are a legal assistant. Answer concisely and accurately. When legal text is provided, rely on it and do not invent facts.

user: Read the legal provision and list the applicable contract clause categories. Provision: Executive acknowledges that the continued success of the Company depends upon the use and protection of a large body of confidential, proprietary, and/or trade secret information that (i) is related to the Company’s or its subsidiaries’ current or potential business and (ii) is not generally known or publicly available. All of such confidential, proprietary and trade secret information now existing or developed during Executive’s employment with the Company will be referred to as “Confidential Information.” Confidential Information includes, without specific limitation, the confidential, proprietary and trade secret information, that is obtained by Executive during the course of his or her employment, and that relates to the business and affairs of the Company and its subsidiaries, or of customers of the Company, or to any of their development, transition and transformation plans, methodologies and methods of doing business, strategic, marketing and expansion plans, including plans regarding planned and potential sales, financial and business plans, confidential employee lists and contact information, compensation and incentive structures and strategies, or to their confidential sales information, including volumes, pricing, and margins, new and existing programs and services, prices and terms, customer service, integration processes, requirements and costs of providing service, products or support. Executive agrees that he or she shall not disclose, at any time (including after his employment ends), to any unauthorized person or use for his own account any of such Confidential Information without the prior written consent of the Company’s Board of Directors, unless and to the extent that any Confidential Information is required (or permitted as provided below) to be disclosed pursuant to any applicable law or court order. Confidential Information will not be deemed to include information (i) that is or becomes available to the public other than as a result of a breach of this Agreement by Executive or any other person, (ii) that becomes available to Executive following termination of employment from a third party that has no confidentiality obligation to the Company related to such information, or (iii) that is independently developed by Executive following termination of employment from other sources of available information or Executive’s general knowledge, without reference to or use of the Confidential Information. Pursuant to the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016, the parties hereto acknowledge and agree that Executive shall not have criminal or civil liability under any Federal or State trade secret law for the disclosure of a trade secret that (i) is made (x) in confidence to a Federal, State, or local government official, either directly or indirectly, or to an attorney and (y) solely for the purpose of reporting or investigating a suspected violation of law; or (ii) is made in a complaint or other document filed in a lawsuit or other proceeding, if such filing is made under seal. In addition, if Executive files a lawsuit for retaliation by the Company or any of its subsidiaries for reporting a suspected violation of law, Executive may disclose the trade secret to his attorney and may use the trade secret information in the court proceeding, if Executive (A) files any document containing the trade secret under seal and (B) does not disclose the trade secret, except pursuant to court order. Executive has the right under federal law to certain protections for cooperating with or reporting legal violations to the Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and/or its Office of the Whistleblower, as well as certain other governmental entities and self-regulatory organizations. As such, nothing in this Agreement or otherwise is intended to prohibit Executive from disclosing this Agreement to, or from cooperating with or reporting violations to, the SEC or any other such governmental entity or self-regulatory organization, and Executive may do so without notifying the Company. Neither the Company nor any of its subsidiaries may retaliate against Executive for any of these activities, and nothing in this Agreement or otherwise requires Executive to waive any monetary award or other payment that Executive might become entitled to from the SEC or any other governmental entity. Moreover, nothing in this Agreement or otherwise prohibits Executive from notifying the Company that Executive is going to make a report or disclosure to law enforcement.

assistant: Confidentiality