IMG Worldwide, LLC v. Fashion Week Inc.
- Katharine Parker
- 1:19-cv-11225
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In IMG Worldwide v. Fashion Week, Judge Parker approved redactions and sealing of transcript passages about confidential settlement discussions.
The ruling affects IMG Worldwide, LLC, International Merchandising Company, LLC, the defendants, and members of the public seeking access to the July 27, 2020 transcript.
What happened
IMG Worldwide, LLC and International Merchandising Company, LLC asked the court to protect portions of a transcript from a July 27, 2020 case-management conference in IMG Worldwide v. Fashion Week. The requested passages concerned the parties’ earlier confidential settlement discussions.
The plaintiffs asked to redact four specific groups of transcript lines and keep those portions under seal. They said the information was confidential, was known only to the parties, and had been covered by an agreement to maintain confidentiality. They also filed a redacted version publicly and an unredacted version under seal.
The court approved the request, as shown by Judge Katharine H. Parker’s “SO ORDERED” endorsement dated August 20, 2020. The text does not separately use the word “granted,” but it authorizes the requested redactions and sealing.
The detailed version
- IMG Worldwide, LLC v. Fashion Week Inc. · No. 1:19-cv-11225
- Katharine Parker
- Aug. 20, 2020
Background
Plaintiffs IMG Worldwide, LLC and International Merchandising Company, LLC, through their attorneys, asked the court to redact and seal limited portions of the transcript of a July 27, 2020 telephonic case-management conference. The requested redactions concerned references to the parties’ prior confidential settlement negotiations.
Requested Redactions
The plaintiffs identified four portions of the transcript for redaction: pages 9, lines 21–22; page 9, line 24; page 10, line 2; and page 19, lines 11–12. They stated that the settlement information was not known to anyone other than the plaintiffs and defendants in the action and that the parties had agreed to keep the discussions confidential.
The plaintiffs said they had publicly filed a version of the transcript showing the proposed redactions and had filed an unredacted version under seal with the proposed redactions highlighted. They argued that the limited redactions would preserve public access to most of the transcript while protecting confidential settlement information. Their letter cited decisions discussing the reduced presumption of public access for settlement negotiations and the need for sealing to be narrowly tailored.
Ruling
Judge Katharine H. Parker endorsed the filing “SO ORDERED” on August 20, 2020. This indicates approval of the plaintiffs’ request to redact the identified transcript passages and maintain them under seal. The provided text does not separately state that a motion was “granted”; it consists of the plaintiffs’ request with the court’s ordering endorsement.
Effect
The ruling affects public access to the specified portions of the July 27 transcript. The provided text indicates that the requested settlement-related passages are to be redacted from the public version and kept in the sealed, unredacted version.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.