Allianz Global Investors GmbH v. Bank Of America Corporation
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:18-cv-10364
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Allianz Global Investors v. Bank of America, Judge Schofield granted a request to keep an unredacted discovery letter and exhibits under seal.
The parties and BlackRock were affected: the unredacted discovery letter and exhibits were kept under seal, while redacted versions remained publicly available.
What happened
Allianz Global Investors GmbH v. Bank Of America Corporation involved a request to seal an unredacted version of the parties’ joint letter about discovery issues.
The publicly filed letter contained redactions of communications. The unredacted version included information from BlackRock documents that BlackRock had designated confidential because it concerned sensitive commercial information about its foreign-exchange operations. The parties asked to keep the public version redacted and file the unredacted version under seal.
Judge Lorna Schofield found that sealing was appropriate under the governing standards and granted the request to seal. The opinion states that the unredacted letter and its exhibits would remain under seal while the redacted versions remained publicly available.
The detailed version
- Allianz Global Investors GmbH v. Bank Of America Corporation · No. 1:18-cv-10364
- Lorna Schofield
- Feb. 25, 2022
Background
The parties sought permission to file under seal an unredacted version of a joint letter concerning discovery issues. A redacted version had already been filed publicly. The defendants’ portion of the letter contained information taken from internal BlackRock documents. BlackRock had designated that information confidential under the case’s protective order because it involved sensitive commercial information about its foreign-exchange operations.
The request sought to keep the letter and its exhibits publicly available in redacted form while filing the unredacted versions under seal. The opinion explains that documents submitted for non-dispositive discovery matters receive a lower presumption of public access than documents central to resolving the merits. It also recognizes that confidential business information and business secrecy can justify sealing when the restriction is necessary and narrowly tailored.
Ruling
The court found that the requested sealing was appropriate under the standards stated in Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga. The request to seal was GRANTED. The publicly filed redacted versions therefore remained available, while the unredacted letter and exhibits were to be filed under seal.
Note on the record
The supplied case metadata identifies Lorna Schofield as the judge. The opinion text is addressed to Magistrate Judge Stewart D. Aaron and does not include a separate judicial signature, so the record excerpt creates some uncertainty about which judge entered the sealing ruling.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.