they are required to be in writing under the statute of frauds. the requirement to be in writing applies to a few other things. one could make an argument that it might apply in this case given the amounts involved ($130,000), but generally, nondisclosure agreements can do not need to be in writing.
if she accepted and held the money, that's pretty compelling evidence that an agreement existed, especially if she also complied with other provisions, such as returning any confidential information.
moreover, her failure to produce a signature from donnie is not very convincing evidence that donnie never signed it. donnie could easily produce a signed version.
even if a court were convinced that donnie never signed it, it's not clear that the entire agreement falls apart. the main agreement is between stormy and cohen. it's possible that a court could determine that donnie has no rights under the contract but cohen still does, and that really doesn't advance stormy's position much. cohen can still silence her.
in fact it's not even clear to me that donnie needed to be in the contract at all.
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