It is typically oral, but it may be written or simply understood as part of an unspoken agreement by convention or through mutually beneficial etiquette.
[4] A report from the United States House of Representatives detailing their investigation of the United States Steel Corporation asserted that there were two general types of loose associations or consolidations between steel and iron interests in the 1890s in which the individual concerns retained ownership as well as a large degree of independence: the "pool" and the "gentleman's agreement."
[6] German manufacturers limit the top speed of high-performance saloons (sedans) and station wagons to 250 kilometres per hour (155 mph).
However, in the 1925 case of Rose & Frank Co v JR Crompton & Bros Ltd, the House of Lords held that the phrase, "This arrangement is not ... a formal or legal agreement ... but is only a record of the intention of the parties" was sufficient to rebut the said presumption.
[16] Gentlemen's agreements were a widely used discriminatory tactic reportedly more common than restrictive covenants in preserving the homogeneity of upper-class neighborhoods and suburbs in the United States.
The nature of these agreements made them extremely difficult to prove or to track, and were effective long after the United States Supreme Court's rulings in Shelley v. Kraemer and Barrows v. Jackson.
[17] Until Jackie Robinson was hired by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946, a gentlemen's agreement ensured that African American players were excluded from organized baseball.