Fontana v. Argentina Republic
- Loretta Preska
- 1:03-cv-08531
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Fontana v. Republic, Judge Preska ordered counsel to follow agreed procedures for filing discovery documents publicly, with redactions or under seal.
The order affected the parties and their counsel by governing how the production would be filed: one category publicly, the settlement agreement with limited redactions, and the settlement emails under seal.
What happened
In Fontana, et al. v. Republic of Argentina, the Republic addressed how a 419-page document production should be filed in connection with Guillermo Gleizer’s planned request for attorney fees. The production included a foreign court file, an unredacted settlement agreement, and settlement-related emails.
The Republic said the foreign court file could be filed publicly. It agreed that the settlement agreement could be filed publicly with redactions protecting the plaintiffs’ phone numbers and addresses, but asked that the settlement emails be filed under seal. Gleizer’s counsel agreed to those confidentiality arrangements without giving up his position about whether the documents were relevant.
Judge Loretta A. Preska ordered counsel to proceed as agreed and as described in the referenced letter. The opinion text does not provide a separate explanation beyond that order.
The detailed version
- Fontana v. Argentina Republic · No. 1:03-cv-08531
- Loretta Preska
- Dec. 23, 2020
Background
The Republic of Argentina’s counsel responded to an order asking why documents referenced in Guillermo Gleizer’s letter should be filed under seal. The documents came from a 419-page production that the Republic made under a court-approved agreement for limited discovery. A separate court-approved confidentiality agreement governed how confidential portions could be filed.
The production had three components:
- A file from Case No. 35465 (2017) in courts of the Province of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and South Atlantic Islands. The Republic had not marked this material confidential and said it could be filed publicly.
- An unredacted Master Settlement Agreement dated April 8, 2016, containing the plaintiffs’ phone numbers and addresses. The Republic agreed that the agreement could be filed on the public docket with limited redactions protecting that information.
- Email communications between the Republic and the plaintiffs before and after the settlement agreement’s February 8, 2016 date. The Republic requested that these emails be filed under seal, stating that settlement discussions and draft agreements generally have little or no presumption of public access.
Positions of the Parties
The Republic requested filing the first category publicly, filing the settlement agreement with limited redactions, and filing the settlement emails under seal. The letter states that Gleizer’s counsel consented to those confidentiality arrangements, without abandoning his position concerning the documents’ relevance.
Ruling
Judge Loretta A. Preska ordered counsel to proceed as agreed and as outlined in the referenced October 20, 2020 letter. The text supplied does not reproduce that letter, so it does not specify any additional procedures beyond the agreement described in the Republic’s letter. The order addressed the handling of documents and confidentiality, not the merits of the underlying dispute or the anticipated attorney-fee request.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.