Palantir Technologies Inc. v. Abramowitz
- Beth Freeman
- 5:19-cv-06879
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 6
In Palantir v. Abramowitz, Judge Freeman granted in part and denied in part sealing motions, while denying Abramowitz’s motion.
Palantir Technologies Inc. and Marc L. Abramowitz, regarding public access to materials filed with their expert-testimony motions.
What happened
Palantir Technologies Inc. v. Abramowitz involved six requests to keep materials related to expert-witness challenges from public view. Five requests concerned Palantir’s information, including trade secrets, client information, licensing and pricing, employee compensation, and financial and accounting information.
The court granted in part and denied in part the motions involving Palantir’s information and ordered Palantir to file public, redacted versions of specified documents. It denied the motion involving Abramowitz’s information because Abramowitz said he did not want the materials to remain sealed, and it ordered Palantir to file public, unredacted versions of those documents.
Judge Beth Labson Freeman issued the order on June 21, 2022, applying rules that require strong reasons to seal court filings closely related to a case’s merits and narrower reasons for filings only loosely related to the merits.
The detailed version
- Palantir Technologies Inc. v. Abramowitz · No. 5:19-cv-06879
- Beth Freeman
- June 21, 2022
Background
The court considered six administrative motions to file materials under seal in connection with the parties’ motions to exclude expert testimony. Five motions concerned information belonging to Palantir Technologies Inc.; one concerned information designated as confidential by Marc L. Abramowitz. The court reviewed the motions and supporting declarations.
Legal standard
Court filings are generally presumed open to public inspection. Under the court’s stated standard, filings more than tangentially related to the merits of a case may be sealed only for “compelling reasons.” Filings only tangentially related to the merits may be sealed upon a showing of “good cause.” The party seeking sealing must explain the legal basis, provide evidentiary support when necessary, and propose a narrowly tailored order that seals only material eligible for protection.
Rulings on Palantir’s information
The court found that the material Palantir sought to protect included confidential trade-secret information; confidential work for third-party clients; licensing agreements and pricing practices; employee salaries and compensation packages; and financial statements, overhead costs, and accounting practices. The court concluded that the portions Palantir sought to keep sealed were narrowly tailored and that legal authority supported sealing the employee compensation and accounting information.
The administrative motions to seal Palantir’s information—ECF Nos. 290, 296, 298, 301, and 306—were granted in part and denied in part. The court identified specific paragraphs, pages, deposition excerpts, exhibits, attachments, and portions of filings that must be sealed. Within 14 days after the order, Palantir had to file public, redacted versions of those documents and public, unredacted versions of ECF Nos. 290-7, 290-8, and 290-11, which were not subject to Palantir’s sealing requests.
Ruling on Abramowitz’s information
The court denied the motion to seal Abramowitz’s designated materials, ECF No. 299. Abramowitz had stated that he did not seek to keep those materials under seal. Within 14 days after the order, Palantir had to file public, unredacted versions of documents containing Abramowitz’s designated information.
Disposition
The court ordered that the parties’ sealing motions were granted in part and denied in part according to the rulings in the order’s sections concerning Palantir’s and Abramowitz’s information. Palantir was required to file the new public versions described in those sections.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.