Tevra Brands LLC v. Bayer HealthCare LLC
- Beth Freeman
- 5:19-cv-04312
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 7
In Tevra Brands v. Bayer HealthCare, Judge Freeman partly granted and partly denied motions to seal, allowing sealing only for product- or customer-specific price terms.
Tevra Brands LLC and Bayer HealthCare LLC were affected by the rulings on their requested redactions. The order also affected public access to the First Amended Complaint, its red-lined version, and Tevra’s reply.
What happened
Tevra Brands asked to seal parts of its First Amended Complaint, a marked-up version, and its reply supporting permission to file that complaint. The filings included information that Tevra and Bayer HealthCare described as confidential business information.
The court said the complaint was central to the public’s understanding of the case, so the parties had to show strong, specific reasons for keeping the information secret. General statements that disclosure could harm their competitive positions were not enough, especially because the information concerned allegations at the heart of Tevra’s claims.
The court granted sealing only for product-specific or customer-specific price terms and otherwise denied the requests, with the denials made without prejudice. The court allowed the parties to file renewed sealing motions by March 27, 2020. Judge Beth Labson Freeman issued the order.
The detailed version
- Tevra Brands LLC v. Bayer HealthCare LLC · No. 5:19-cv-04312
- Beth Freeman
- Mar. 16, 2020
Background
Tevra Brands LLC filed administrative motions asking to seal portions of its First Amended Complaint, the red-lined version of that complaint, and its reply supporting its motion for leave to file the amended complaint. The requested redactions covered information that Tevra and Bayer HealthCare LLC identified as highly confidential and sensitive business information, including Tevra’s offers to retailers, comparisons between Tevra’s and Bayer’s prices, Bayer’s agreements with retailers, and Bayer’s internal financial and business strategies.
Legal standard
The court explained that judicial records are generally open to public inspection. Because the requested information appeared in the complaint—the filing that forms the basis of the lawsuit—the parties had to show “compelling reasons” for sealing it. That required specific factual support showing that secrecy outweighed the public’s interest in understanding the case. The court also required the requests to be narrowly tailored to seal only material that could properly be kept secret.
Ruling
The court found that the parties had not shown sufficiently specific competitive harm for most of the requested redactions. The allegations involved the terms of Bayer’s dealer contracts and price differences between the parties’ products, which the court said were important to understanding Tevra’s claims. General and conclusory statements about possible harm to competitive standing did not satisfy the required standard.
The court granted the motions to seal as to product-specific or customer-specific price terms. It otherwise denied the motions to seal, including the corresponding portions of the red-lined complaint and the identified portions of Tevra’s reply. The denials were expressly without prejudice, and the parties were given until March 27, 2020, to file renewed administrative motions to seal. The court also denied Bayer’s request to seal Tevra’s projections because Bayer, the designating party, had not shown that those projections were Bayer’s proprietary information.
Judge Beth Labson Freeman signed the order.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.