Canfield v. SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc.
- Andrew Carter
- 1:18-cv-08913
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Canfield v. SS&C Technologies, Inc., Judge Carter denied DST’s request to seal arbitration documents filed with its motion to disqualify plaintiffs’ counsel.
DST Systems, Inc., the DST Advisory Committee, the DST Compensation Committee, the plaintiffs’ counsel, and the arbitration claimants whose demands were subject to the sealing request.
What happened
In Canfield v. SS&C Technologies, Inc., DST Systems and related DST committees asked to keep arbitration demands and excerpts from those demands secret while seeking to disqualify the plaintiffs’ lawyers. The defendants said the documents could implicate the arbitration claimants’ confidentiality interests.
The court found that the documents were judicial documents because they were filed in connection with a court motion. It ruled that the defendants had not shown a sufficient reason to overcome the public’s right to access court records. A confidentiality provision in one arbitration agreement, without more, was not enough.
Judge Carter denied the motion to seal and ordered DST to file the documents publicly by October 6, 2020. The order resolved the defendants’ sealing request.
The detailed version
- Canfield v. SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. · No. 1:18-cv-08913
- Andrew Carter
- Sept. 30, 2020
Background
Defendants DST Systems, Inc., the Advisory Committee of the DST Systems, Inc. 401(k) Profit Sharing Plan, and the Compensation Committee of DST’s Board of Directors sought permission to file certain exhibits under seal. The exhibits were submitted in connection with the defendants’ motion to disqualify the plaintiffs’ counsel because the firm was representing the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against former DST Advisory Board members while also representing several of those individuals in arbitration proceedings.
The defendants sought to seal one arbitration demand and excerpts from arbitration demands submitted for four other clients. They stated that one arbitration agreement required the arbitration and hearing to remain confidential to the extent allowed by law. The defendants also said that sealing might protect the arbitration claimants’ confidentiality interests, while acknowledging that the public filing had not prejudiced DST.
Legal standard
The court explained that court records relevant to the judicial process are generally subject to a common-law right of public access. Some records also receive a stronger, qualified right of access under the First Amendment. For records covered by the common-law right, the court weighs the strength of the public-access presumption against competing interests, including privacy and the efficient operation of the courts.
Ruling
The court held that the arbitration demands were judicial documents. It found that the presumption favoring access was not especially strong because the demands did not concern the alleged conflict in the representation at issue. Even so, the defendants had not identified substantive reasons supporting secrecy. The court stated that the existence of a confidentiality agreement alone did not show that sealing was necessary, and the defendants had not identified information in the demands whose disclosure would harm either party.
Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. denied the motion to seal. The court ordered DST to file the documents on the public record by October 6, 2020, and stated that the ruling resolved ECF No. 35.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.