In re Foreign Exchange Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litigation
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:13-cv-07789
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 18
In re Foreign Exchange Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litigation: Judge Schofield granted plaintiffs’ requests to seal confidential filings and limited access to specified people.
The plaintiffs, the parties and individuals listed in Appendix A, and public access to the unredacted filings are affected. The opinion does not identify any broader effect.
What happened
In In re Foreign Exchange Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litigation, plaintiffs asked to seal parts of three motions and their supporting papers concerning requests to obtain testimony overseas from Frank Cahill, Niall O’ Riordan, and Richard Gibbons.
The court granted the requests. The unredacted documents will remain sealed, and only the parties and individuals listed in Appendix A may access them. The court said sealing was necessary to prevent unauthorized disclosure of confidential business information and sensitive personal information.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield also ordered plaintiffs to send copies of the three Hague Convention requests in Microsoft Word format to the court’s Chambers Inbox by March 25, 2020.
The detailed version
- In re Foreign Exchange Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litigation · No. 1:13-cv-07789
- Lorna Schofield
- Mar. 19, 2020
Background
On March 6, 2020, plaintiffs moved to seal portions of their motion and supporting papers seeking issuance of a Hague Convention Request for International Judicial Assistance to take testimony overseas from Frank Cahill. Plaintiffs filed a similar sealing motion concerning testimony from Niall O’ Riordan on the same date. On March 11, 2020, plaintiffs moved to seal portions of their motion and supporting papers concerning testimony from Richard Gibbons.
Ruling
The court granted plaintiffs’ redaction and sealing requests. The unredacted versions of the documents will remain sealed, and only the parties and individuals identified in Appendix A will have access. The court explained that the public’s common-law right to access judicial documents is not absolute and must be balanced against competing considerations. It found that filing the documents in redacted form or under seal was necessary to prevent unauthorized dissemination of confidential business information and sensitive personal information.
Additional Order
The court ordered plaintiffs to send the Hague Convention Requests to the Chambers Inbox in Microsoft Word format by March 25, 2020. Judge Lorna G. Schofield signed the order on March 19, 2020.
Read the full 18-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.