Capri Sun GmbH v. American Beverage Corporation
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:19-cv-01422
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
Capri Sun GmbH v. American Beverage Corporation: Judge Engelmayer granted ABC’s motion to redact commercially sensitive transcript excerpts and ordered a public redacted version filed.
American Beverage Corporation received approval for its proposed transcript redactions. The public will have access to a redacted version of the hearing transcript rather than the unredacted version.
What happened
In Capri Sun GmbH v. American Beverage Corporation, American Beverage Corporation asked to redact limited portions of a hearing transcript. The company said the passages quoted documents that the court had previously ordered sealed.
American Beverage Corporation said the passages contained confidential business communications about marketing, products, customers, and competitive analysis, as well as deposition testimony discussing those materials. It argued that public disclosure could harm the company competitively.
Judge Paul A. Engelmayer granted the defendant’s motion to redact. He directed the Clerk of Court to file a public version of the transcript with the proposed redactions and to close the motion.
The detailed version
- Capri Sun GmbH v. American Beverage Corporation · No. 1:19-cv-01422
- Paul Engelmayer
- Apr. 29, 2022
Background
American Beverage Corporation (ABC), the defendant, sought approval to redact limited portions of the official transcript of a March 17, 2022 summary-judgment hearing. ABC had previously filed a notice stating that it intended to request redactions.
ABC proposed redacting passages that directly quoted documents the court had ordered filed under seal. The cited materials included documents and deposition-transcript excerpts concerning internal, confidential, and commercially sensitive business communications about marketing, existing and new products, current or potential customers, and competitive analysis.
ABC’s position
ABC argued that good cause supported the redactions because the quoted documents had already been sealed and contained information that could commercially or competitively disadvantage ABC if made public. ABC also relied on decisions discussing the sealing of trade secrets, confidential research and development information, marketing plans, revenue information, pricing information, and similar business material.
Ruling
The court granted the defendant’s motion to redact. The Clerk of Court was directed to file on the public docket a redacted version of the transcript at docket entry 183, using the redactions proposed in ABC’s publicly filed exhibit at docket entry 191, Exhibit 2. The Clerk was also directed to close the motion at docket entry 191.
The supplied opinion text does not include a separate discussion by the court explaining the legal standard or its reasoning beyond granting the motion and issuing these filing instructions.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.