“It really told me how much our organizations rely on those settlements,” she added.

Nondisclosure agreements have come under scrutiny across the globe as the #MeToo movement — spurred by media accounts of misconduct against women in the United States — led to broader questions on how and why on-the-job harassment continues. Such contracts typically offer an employee money in exchange for not suing or speaking about her complaints. Generally used by companies to keep internal matters secret, nondisclosure agreements are increasingly viewed as shields that allow bad or illegal workplace behavior to persist.

In Britain, the BBC found that universities paid about $110 million over the last two years in payoffs related to nondisclosure agreements, and a government inquiry is examining the use of such contracts in discrimination cases. In the United States, where millions of dollars were paid to silence women who brought complaints against powerful figures including Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood producer, and Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News host, some states have introduced legislation to limit the use of such agreements. In New York, a new law bars employers from offering nondisclosure agreements in sexual harassment cases unless the person who complains asks for that confidentiality.

In Australia, nondisclosure agreements — and the culture of silence they create — are at the heart of one of the world’s first nationwide attempts to quantify the economic impact of workplace sexual harassment, examine what drives the behavior and analyze the legal framework to resolve claims.

Ms. Jenkins started her career as an employment lawyer in the years after Australia passed a law in 1984 that banned sexual harassment at work. She advised companies on hundreds of disputes that often ended with nondisclosure agreements.

It was standard procedure, she said, to view confidential agreements as benefiting all involved: the claimant who feared retaliation, the accused who denied the allegation and the company that wanted to protect its reputation.