FuboTV Inc. v. The Walt Disney Company
- Garnett
- 1:24-cv-01363
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In FuboTV v. Disney, Judge Garnett granted all five motions to seal or redact filings containing confidential business information.
FuboTV Inc., FuboTV Media Inc., Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc., Fox Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, ESPN, Inc., ESPN Enterprises, Inc., and Hulu, LLC; specified filings may remain sealed or be publicly filed in redacted form.
What happened
FuboTV Inc. and FuboTV Media Inc. v. The Walt Disney Company concerns five requests to keep certain court filings confidential or publicly disclose them only in redacted form. The filings supported Fubo’s request for a preliminary injunction, defendants’ requests to dismiss the complaint, and Fubo’s amended complaint.
The court found that the documents contained commercially sensitive information, including carriage agreements, financial analyses, marketing data, business strategies, and a sensitive agreement involving an ongoing commercial relationship. It explained that public access to court documents is important but not absolute, and must be balanced against the need to protect confidential business information.
Judge Garnett granted each of the five motions to seal. The court allowed specified filings to remain sealed or to appear publicly with redactions, and directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the five related docket entries. The order did not decide the pending preliminary-injunction or dismissal motions.
The detailed version
- FuboTV Inc. v. The Walt Disney Company · No. 1:24-cv-01363
- Garnett
- Apr. 30, 2024
Background
The court considered five letter-motions seeking permission to file documents under seal or in redacted form. The documents supported Fubo’s pending motion for a preliminary injunction, motions to dismiss filed by defendants, and Fubo’s amended complaint.
FuboTV Inc. and FuboTV Media Inc. jointly requested sealing or redaction of their preliminary-injunction memorandum and supporting declarations, as well as limited portions of their amended complaint. Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. and Fox Corporation separately sought to seal or redact portions of their dismissal memoranda. The Walt Disney Company, ESPN, Inc., ESPN Enterprises, Inc., and Hulu, LLC sought to seal or redact portions of their dismissal materials, a declaration and its exhibits, a request for judicial notice, and a motion to stay discovery.
Reasoning
The court stated that the common-law right of public access to judicial documents is important but not absolute. Courts must balance that presumption of access against other relevant considerations. After reviewing the documents and considering the parties’ representations, the court found that the materials contained commercially sensitive and confidential business information.
The information included Fubo’s carriage agreements with defendants, proprietary financial analyses, marketing data, business strategies, and information similar or identical to material previously ordered sealed in an earlier related proceeding. The court also found that one exhibit to the Disney Defendants’ declaration was a sensitive business agreement concerning the parties’ ongoing commercial relationship, and that the exhibit’s terms should remain confidential.
Disposition
The court granted the Fubo preliminary-injunction motion to seal, the Fubo amended-complaint motion to seal, the Warner Bros. Discovery motion to seal, the Fox motion to seal, and the Disney Defendants’ motion to seal. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate Dkt. Nos. 73, 117, 118, 124, and 143. This order addressed document sealing and redaction; it did not resolve the underlying preliminary-injunction, dismissal, or discovery motions.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.