Statoil Limited v. Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
- Richard Berman
- 1:18-cv-02392
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Statoil (Nigeria) Limited v. Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., Judge Berman approved redactions protecting third-party privacy and sensitive business information.
The order affected Statoil (Nigeria) Limited, Texaco Nigeria Outer Shelf Limited, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the third-party contractor, and non-party individuals whose contact and compensation information appeared in the filings.
What happened
Statoil (Nigeria) Limited and Texaco Nigeria Outer Shelf Limited asked to redact limited information from exhibits and the amended petition in their case against Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. The respondent consented to the requests.
The court had earlier rejected and denied without prejudice requests to seal entire exhibits, but approved the narrower redactions in the new application. The approved redactions covered third-party contract performance and pricing information, individual phone numbers and email addresses, a contractor’s identity, and employee salary and grade-level information.
Judge Berman concluded that the privacy interests and sensitivity of the information outweighed the public’s interest in disclosure and approved all redactions. The court also assumed that the petitioners would file an unredacted amended petition by June 22, 2020.
The detailed version
- Statoil Limited v. Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation · No. 1:18-cv-02392
- Richard Berman
- June 15, 2020
Background
Statoil (Nigeria) Limited and Texaco Nigeria Outer Shelf Limited, the petitioners, submitted several requests to seal exhibits or redact portions of filings. Their first applications sought to place an entire exhibit under seal and to redact references to that exhibit in the amended petition. Their later application sought narrower redactions in exhibits to the declaration of Nathan Hembree. Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the respondent, consented to the applications.
At an April 20, 2020 argument, the court rejected and denied without prejudice the earlier requests to seal entire exhibits. The court instructed the petitioners to narrow their requests in a way more consistent with the public’s right to know. The petitioners then stated that they no longer sought to seal documents in their entirety and instead requested narrowly tailored redactions.
Court’s analysis
The court explained that the privacy interests of innocent third parties are important when deciding whether to restrict public access to court filings. It also stated that the presumption of public access is weaker for information that has little or no bearing on the court’s treatment of the parties’ motions.
The court approved the following redactions:
- Three sentences on the second page of Exhibit F concerning performance objectives and pricing information under contracts between the respondent and third parties. - Phone numbers and email addresses on the last page of Exhibit F. - The identity of a third-party contractor mentioned in Exhibits J and K, which contained a negative assessment of the contractor’s performance. - Employee salary and grade-level information in Exhibits O-R and T-U, because the grade-level information could be used to estimate employee compensation.
Ruling
Judge Richard M. Berman approved all of the proposed redactions. The court determined that the relevant third-party privacy interests, including protection of sensitive commercial, contact, performance, and compensation information, outweighed the public’s interest in disclosure. The order also stated that the court assumed the petitioners would file the amended petition without redactions no later than June 22, 2020.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.