Federal Trade Commission v. Tapestry, Inc.

Background

The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint in this case. Tapestry, Inc. and Capri Holdings Limited jointly asked the court to keep selected portions of the complaint under seal. An earlier judge had allowed the case to be filed under seal, subject to review by the judge assigned to the case.

The defendants later met and conferred with the FTC about making the complaint public. They substantially reduced the requested redactions and sought to maintain under seal only a small subset containing competitively sensitive information. The FTC did not oppose the proposed redactions.

Information at Issue

The proposed redactions covered portions of the complaint concerning forward-looking competitive strategy plans, competitively sensitive pricing analyses, and proprietary analyses of customer demographics, customer shopping habits, and workplace conditions. The defendants argued that disclosure could harm their competitive standing.

The defendants acknowledged that the complaint was a judicial document subject to a presumption of public access. They argued that protecting competitively sensitive business information outweighed that presumption for the specific material they identified.

Ruling

The court granted the defendants’ unopposed motion. It ordered that the document at ECF No. 97-1 would be the operative public version of the complaint and that the document at ECF No. 98-1 would remain under seal. The court also directed the Clerk of Court to close the motion pending at ECF No. 97.

Judge Rochon reminded the parties that information currently under seal might later be needed for judicial decisions. If that occurs, the balance between public access and the interests supporting confidentiality may change, and further unsealing may be required.