Nielsen Consumer LLC v. Circana Group, L.P.
- James Oetken
- 1:22-cv-03235
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
Nielsen Consumer v. Circana Group: Magistrate Judge Parker granted both parties’ motions to seal narrowly tailored redactions to a status-conference transcript.
Nielsen Consumer LLC, Circana Group, L.P., and the public’s access to the November 20, 2024 status-conference transcript.
What happened
In Nielsen Consumer LLC v. Circana Group, L.P., the parties sought redactions to the transcript of a November 20, 2024 status conference about discovery disputes.
Nielsen asked to redact nonpublic business, commercial-strategy, and customer information. Circana asked to redact nonpublic information about its classification method for prestige-beauty data. The parties jointly proposed the redactions.
Judge Katharine H. Parker granted both motions to seal and directed the court reporter to use the proposed redactions. The court warned that the information might not remain sealed if used with a motion asking the court to decide the case because such filings have greater public importance.
The detailed version
- Nielsen Consumer LLC v. Circana Group, L.P. · No. 1:22-cv-03235
- James Oetken
- Jan. 2, 2025
Background
The order concerns the official transcript of a November 20, 2024 status conference. The transcript discussed discovery disputes and definitions of terms involved in the case. The parties argued that some of the information was competitively sensitive and not public.
Motions and proposed redactions
Nielsen Consumer LLC moved to partially redact references to its competitively sensitive, nonpublic business information, commercial strategies, and nonpublic information about its customers. Circana Group, L.P. separately moved to partially redact nonpublic, competitively sensitive information about its classification methodology for prestige-beauty data. The parties later filed joint proposed redactions to the transcript.
Ruling
The court found that the narrowly limited redactions were appropriate under the standard governing access to judicial documents, which permits sealing when specific findings show that closing the record is necessary to protect an important interest and the restriction is narrowly tailored. The court granted Nielsen’s motion to seal and granted Circana’s motion to seal. It directed the court reporter to adopt the redactions contained in the parties’ filing and directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the motions. The court also advised that the information was unlikely to remain sealed if used in connection with a motion seeking a decision on the merits, given the greater public interest in such filings.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.