Laidlaw & Company Ltd. v. Marinaccio
- Ronnie Abrams
- 1:19-cv-05246
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Laidlaw & Company (UK) Ltd. v. Marinaccio, Judge Abrams required justification before allowing the requested filings to be sealed.
Laidlaw & Company (UK) Ltd. was required to provide sealing justifications or narrower proposed redactions by February 4, 2020. The order does not state that it imposed a separate requirement on John Michael Marinaccio.
What happened
In Laidlaw & Company (UK) Ltd. v. Marinaccio, Laidlaw asked to file its proposed motion to pause arbitration and related documents entirely under seal.
The court said Laidlaw had not explained why complete sealing was justified. It noted that court filings generally carry a strong presumption of public access, even when a motion seeks to pause arbitration rather than enforce an arbitration award.
Judge Abrams ordered Laidlaw to explain by February 4, 2020, why complete sealing was justified or, instead, to propose narrower redactions and explain each one. The order did not decide whether the filings would ultimately be sealed or whether arbitration should be paused.
The detailed version
- Laidlaw & Company Ltd. v. Marinaccio · No. 1:19-cv-05246
- Ronnie Abrams
- Jan. 28, 2020
Background
Petitioner Laidlaw & Company (UK) Ltd. sought to file under seal its proposed motion to stay arbitration and the documents accompanying that motion. The opinion states that Laidlaw sought to seal the materials in their entirety. Laidlaw had not identified the reasons supporting that request under the standard in Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga.
Court’s analysis
The court explained that sealing may be appropriate for particular confidential information, but the party seeking sealing must show why it outweighs the strong presumption that federal court records should be available to the public. The court also held that a motion to stay arbitration and its attachments are judicial documents subject to that presumption, even though the requested stay was described as largely non-dispositive relief and did not involve enforcing an arbitration award.
Order
The court ordered Laidlaw to provide, by February 4, 2020, its reasons why sealing the motion and accompanying documents in their entirety was justified under the Lugosch standard. Alternatively, Laidlaw could submit narrower proposed redactions by that date, but it had to justify each proposed redaction under the same standard. Judge Ronnie Abrams did not decide in this order whether the documents would be sealed or whether the arbitration would be stayed.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.