In re Citibank August 11, 2020 Wire Transfers
- Jesse Furman
- 1:20-cv-06539
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In re Citibank August 11, 2020 Wire Transfers: Judge Furman denied Defendants’ motion to keep proposed findings redacted and ordered the filing unsealed.
Defendants, Citibank, Revlon, other relevant third parties, and members of the public and press seeking access to the court filing or future trial exhibits.
What happened
In In re Citibank August 11, 2020 Wire Transfers, Defendants asked to file their proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law with redactions. Citibank consented to public filing, while Revlon asked to keep certain information sealed or redacted.
Judge Furman reviewed the overlapping material and found no basis for continued redactions because the information was not materially different from information already public or outside the court record. The ruling applied only to the proposed findings, not to underlying exhibits.
Judge Furman denied the motion to seal in its entirety, ordered the unredacted filing made public, and directed the parties to propose a process for handling public access to trial exhibits by November 25, 2020.
The detailed version
- In re Citibank August 11, 2020 Wire Transfers · No. 1:20-cv-06539
- Jesse Furman
- Nov. 18, 2020
Background
Defendants filed a letter-motion seeking permission to file their Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law with redactions under the parties’ protective order. Defendants later filed both a redacted version and an unredacted version with restricted viewing access. Citibank consented to public filing of the portions it had previously asked to redact. Revlon, Inc. and Revlon Consumer Products Corporation, which were not parties to the action, asked that certain documents and limited testimony remain sealed or be made public only in redacted form.
Court’s Analysis
The court compared the material Revlon identified with the redactions in Defendants’ proposed findings. The court found that only a limited number of portions overlapped and concluded that there was no basis to keep them redacted because the information was not materially different from information already in the public record or outside the record. The court also explained that the ruling did not cover the underlying exhibits, which had not yet been offered or admitted into evidence.
The court stated that exhibits offered or admitted at trial would generally be judicial documents subject to a strong presumption of public access. A confidentiality agreement alone would not overcome that presumption. A party or non-party seeking continued sealing or redaction would have to show that the interests favoring restricted access outweighed the interests favoring public access.
Ruling
Judge Furman denied Defendants’ motion to seal the Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law in its entirety. The Clerk was directed to terminate the motion and unseal ECF No. 145, converting it to public view without restrictions. The parties were ordered to confer with relevant third parties about public access to exhibits offered or admitted at trial and to file a joint letter proposing procedures, along with a proposed order if appropriate, by November 25, 2020. The court noted that information unrelated to the issues in the case could generally be redacted without seeking permission if no party asked the court to consider it.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.