Negotiatus Corp. v. Viola, Inc.
- Stewart Aaron
- 1:24-cv-00243
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Negotiatus v. Viola, Judge Aaron granted the parties’ request to keep settlement financial terms sealed while leaving the redacted version public.
Negotiatus Corp. and Viola, Inc., whose unredacted settlement agreement remains under seal while a version with limited redactions remains publicly available.
What happened
Negotiatus Corp. and Viola, Inc. jointly asked the court to keep the unredacted version of their settlement agreement under seal. They said the agreement’s specific terms were confidential and that confidentiality was important to reaching the settlement.
The parties proposed publicly filing a version with limited redactions covering sensitive financial terms, while keeping the complete agreement under seal. The court treated the settlement agreement as a court record, meaning public access was presumed, but noted that the requested redactions were limited to certain financial information.
Judge Stewart D. Aaron granted the request to seal the unredacted settlement agreement filed at ECF No. 46. The court found that partial sealing was needed to protect confidentiality and was narrowly limited, while the redacted version remained available on the public docket.
The detailed version
- Negotiatus Corp. v. Viola, Inc. · No. 1:24-cv-00243
- Stewart Aaron
- June 7, 2025
Background
The parties jointly asked permission to keep the unredacted version of their settlement agreement under seal. The agreement had been filed at ECF No. 46, while a publicly available version contained limited redactions. The parties stated that they had agreed to keep the settlement’s specific terms confidential and that confidentiality was a material inducement for entering the agreement. They asked that only sensitive terms and conditions remain redacted.
Court’s analysis
The court determined that the settlement agreement was a “judicial document” because it was relevant to the court’s performance of its duties. Judicial documents carry a strong presumption of public access. The court therefore explained that sealing required a specific finding that it was necessary to preserve higher values and that the restriction was narrowly tailored.
The court found that partial sealing was necessary to protect the higher value of preserving confidentiality over certain financial terms of the settlement. It also found that the request was sufficiently narrow because the redactions were limited to that information.
Disposition
The court granted the parties’ request to seal the unredacted version of the settlement agreement filed at ECF No. 46. The publicly filed version with limited redactions remained available on the docket.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.