In re ACTOS Antitrust Litigation
- Ronnie Abrams
- 1:13-cv-09244
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 6
In re ACTOS Antitrust Litigation: Magistrate Judge Aaron required more support before deciding whether to keep redactions sealed.
The parties, third parties whose information was produced or designated confidential, and members of the public seeking access to the summary-judgment materials.
What happened
In In re ACTOS Antitrust Litigation, the parties filed public versions of their summary-judgment papers with redactions. Plaintiffs and defendants said the redactions covered confidential information from third parties, settlement agreements, customer information, and data providers.
The court found that the papers were judicial documents because they were used to decide the summary-judgment motions. It also found a strong presumption that the public should be able to access them, but said the parties had not yet explained why the information should remain sealed.
Magistrate Judge Stewart D. Aaron ordered the parties, and any interested third parties, to submit additional explanations by May 15, 2025. The court will decide afterward whether to keep each item sealed; without an additional showing, the seal will be lifted for that item.
The detailed version
- In re ACTOS Antitrust Litigation · No. 1:13-cv-09244
- Ronnie Abrams
- Apr. 3, 2025
Background
The parties had filed redacted public versions of materials connected to plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment and defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Plaintiffs said their redactions covered information that non-parties had produced in response to subpoenas and marked confidential. Defendants said they had redacted settlement-agreement terms, limited customer information, subpoenaed information designated confidential by non-parties, and confidential information from non-party data providers.
District Judge Abrams had issued an opinion resolving the summary-judgment motions on March 31, 2025. This order addressed whether the redacted information should continue to be kept from public view.
Legal standard
The court explained that judicial documents generally carry a presumption of public access. A judicial document is one filed with the court that is relevant to its judicial work and useful in deciding the case. The party seeking to keep material sealed has the burden to provide specific facts showing that sealing is necessary to protect a higher value and is narrowly tailored to that purpose.
The court described a three-step process: determine whether the material is a judicial document, assess the strength of the public-access presumption, and balance that presumption against legitimate interests favoring nondisclosure, such as attorney-client privilege or third-party privacy.
Court’s analysis
The court found that all documents filed in connection with the summary-judgment motions were judicial documents because the court considered them in resolving those motions. It also found that the presumption of public access was substantial. However, the parties had not adequately addressed the strength of that presumption for the particular information or the interests supporting continued sealing.
The court therefore gave the parties an opportunity to provide that analysis. When parties relied on confidentiality designations made by third parties, they were required to notify those third parties and give them an opportunity to explain why their information should remain sealed.
Disposition
The court ordered the parties to make supplemental submissions by May 15, 2025, addressing the public-access presumption and any reasons against disclosure for each item they wanted to keep sealed. Third parties seeking continued sealing of information they had produced could also file letters by that date. The court stated that it would decide afterward whether to maintain each seal, and that the seal would be lifted for any item lacking an additional showing.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.