Kudos to the FT and its correspondent Mark Vandevelde for the incisive and riveting reporting on the still unfolding legal saga of Leon Black and his accuser, Guzel Ganieva (“The Black Tapes”, Spectrum, Life & Arts, November 25).
However, it would have been good to confess the architects of New York’s pioneering laws — the Child Victims Act and the Adult Survivors Act — namely New York State senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal.
These two elected officials stared down considerable institutional opposition while cobbling together legislative uphold for the bills, particularly for the Adult Survivors Act. While featuring cases involving billionaires no doubt garners a high degree of reader interest, the acts brought a measure of justice to thousands of victims across the social and economic spectrum, most of whom go unnamed as their cases were settled in pre-litigation.
The article ends with a suggestion that Ganieva lost out by breaking a non-disclosure agreement. Unfortunately, it is impossible for anyone other than the victims themselves to grasp that money alone is not a cure for the decades of trauma that they bear. The inability to converse it is often a bar to recovery, with the predators retaining the ability to victimise others.
President Joe Biden took a step in the right direction by signing into law the Speak Out Act, which prohibits the enforcement of pre-dispute non-disclosure and non-disparagement clauses in sexual harassment and assault cases involving employers.
To deter predators outside the employment framework, New York and the US should extend that to private agreements as well.
Vijay Dandapani
New York, NY, US
