Syntel Sterling Best Shores Mauritius Limited v. The Trizetto Group, Inc.
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:15-cv-00211
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Syntel v. TriZetto, Judge Schofield granted in part the parties’ requests to redact sensitive business information from pretrial filings.
The parties’ public pretrial filings and members of the public seeking access to those filings were affected. The parties could redact most proposed sensitive business information, but they could not redact the specified damages figures.
What happened
Syntel Sterling Best Shores Mauritius Limited and Syntel Inc., along with The TriZetto Group Inc. and Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., jointly asked to redact portions of their responses to pretrial legal memoranda.
The court found that most proposed redactions were narrowly tailored to protect sensitive business information, but rejected redactions covering specified damages figures in three filings. The parties had to file public versions with the permitted redactions by September 14, 2020.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield granted the redaction requests in part and directed the Clerk of Court to close the related docket entry.
The detailed version
- Syntel Sterling Best Shores Mauritius Limited v. The Trizetto Group, Inc. · No. 1:15-cv-00211
- Lorna Schofield
- Sept. 11, 2020
Background
Syntel Inc. and Syntel Sterling Best Shores Mauritius Ltd. (together referred to in the order as “Syntel”) and The TriZetto Group Inc. and Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. jointly requested redactions to their responses to the parties’ pretrial memoranda of law. The request was made by joint letter dated September 10, 2020, at Docket No. 663.
Court’s analysis
The court recognized a common-law presumption that the public may access judicial documents, while explaining that the right of access is not absolute. The court must balance that presumption against competing considerations. It found that the proposed redactions generally were narrowly tailored to prevent unauthorized disclosure of sensitive business information.
Ruling
The court granted the redaction requests in part. It rejected Syntel’s proposed redactions to damages figures in Syntel’s response to the defendants’ pretrial memorandum at Docket No. 665, pages 20 and 25. It also rejected Syntel’s proposed redactions to damages figures in the defendants’ response to Syntel’s pretrial memorandum at Docket No. 666, page 24.
The court ordered the parties to file public redacted versions of their responses by September 14, 2020, using the proposed redactions except for those the court rejected. Judge Lorna G. Schofield also directed the Clerk of Court to close Docket No. 663.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.