In Re: LATAM Airlines Group S.A.
- Denise Cote
- 1:22-cv-05660
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Re: LATAM Airlines Group S.A.: Judge Cote authorized a redacted reply brief containing confidential bankruptcy-record information.
The appellant and the debtors whose confidential operational, business, financial, or personal information appeared in the reply brief.
What happened
In Re: LATAM Airlines Group S.A. involved a request to file a reply brief with confidential information hidden from the public. The information came from bankruptcy-court filings or records and concerned the debtors’ operations.
The requesting party argued that the information was commercially sensitive and that the risk of competitive harm outweighed the public’s interest in access. The full, unredacted brief had already been filed under seal.
Judge Cote granted authorization to file the reply brief in redacted form. The order did not address the underlying dispute.
The detailed version
- In Re: LATAM Airlines Group S.A. · No. 1:22-cv-05660
- Denise Cote
- Aug. 8, 2022
Request
An appellant requested permission to file its reply brief in redacted form. The opinion text does not identify the appellant by name. The brief contained information that had been filed under seal with, or accepted into the record by, the bankruptcy court and designated confidential or highly confidential under a protective order.
Reason for Redactions
The requested redactions covered nonpublic proprietary, technical, business, financial, or personal information, including confidential information about the debtors’ operations. The appellant argued that disclosure could cause competitive harm and that this harm outweighed the presumption that judicial documents should be publicly accessible. The full, unredacted reply brief had been electronically filed under seal.
Ruling
The court endorsed the request with the word “Granted” on August 8, 2022. Judge Denise L. Cote therefore authorized the filing of the reply brief in redacted form. The order addressed confidentiality and public access to the filing; it did not decide the underlying appeal or bankruptcy dispute.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.