Harrington Global Opportunity Fund, Limited v. BofA Securities, Inc.
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:21-cv-00761
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Harrington Global v. BofA Securities, Judge Figueredo terminated four sealing motions and required renewed motions under the court-access standard.
The parties seeking to keep the specified filings and exhibits from public view, the parties that designated materials confidential, and members of the public seeking access to the court records were affected. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate the four letter motions.
What happened
Harrington Global Opportunity Fund, Limited v. BofA Securities, Inc. involved four requests to keep documents from public view. The documents included an expert’s declaration and related materials, exhibits designated confidential by Merrill Lynch Canada Inc., and an excerpt of the plaintiff’s discovery responses.
The court said that confidentiality designations under the protective order alone were not enough to permanently seal the documents. It directed any party seeking permanent sealing to file a motion addressing the required legal standard by June 5, 2025. Otherwise, the documents would be made public. The court also directed the clerk to terminate the four letter motions.
Judge Figueredo issued the order on May 15, 2025. The order did not itself permanently seal or unseal the documents; it set a deadline for renewed sealing requests and stated what would happen if the required showing was not made.
The detailed version
- Harrington Global Opportunity Fund, Limited v. BofA Securities, Inc. · No. 1:21-cv-00761
- Lorna Schofield
- May 15, 2025
Background
The court addressed four motions to seal filed at ECF Nos. 405, 410, 422, and 445. Harrington Global Opportunity Fund, Limited sought to seal its response to the defendants’ motion to compel, including a declaration from its testifying expert that the defendants had designated confidential under the case’s protective order. The plaintiff also sought to seal exhibits that Merrill Lynch Canada Inc. had designated highly confidential. In connection with the court’s review of the expert’s computer code and intermediate datasets, the plaintiff sought to file under seal portions of the expert’s declaration and an attached exhibit. Finally, the defendants sought to seal an excerpt of the plaintiff’s Second Amended and Supplemental Objections and Responses to Merrill Lynch Canada Inc.’s First Set of Interrogatories, which the plaintiff had designated confidential.
Legal standard
The court explained that permanently sealing a document requires a showing under Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d 110 (2d Cir. 2006). The court held that, to that point, the only support offered for the four motions was the documents’ designation as confidential under the protective order. Citing Lugosch and another case, the court stated that a broad reliance on a protective order does not overcome the presumption that court records should be accessible to the public. The existence of a confidentiality order alone does not establish that withholding the documents from public view is reasonable.
Order and effect
The court directed any party interested in permanently sealing the documents to file a motion making the required showing under Lugosch by Thursday, June 5, 2025. If the required showing was not made for a document by that date, the document would be unsealed. The clerk was directed to terminate the letter motions at ECF Nos. 405, 410, 422, and 445. The order therefore set a renewed filing requirement and a consequence for failing to meet it; it did not permanently seal the documents itself.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.