In re Foreign Exchange Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litigation
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:13-cv-07789
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In re Foreign Exchange Benchmark Rates, Judge Schofield granted the motion to seal specified exhibits and limited access to listed individuals.
The parties and individuals identified in the attached appendix may access the sealed documents; the public cannot access those documents, and the documents contain personal and confidential business information.
What happened
In re Foreign Exchange Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litigation concerns filings connected to Credit Suisse’s motion to decertify the class and the parties’ requests to seal exhibits. The opinion does not decide the motion to decertify the class.
The court found sealing necessary to protect personal information, including information covered by foreign privacy laws, and confidential business information that was not used in deciding the motion. It also said sealing excerpts was necessary to avoid speculation or misleading conclusions about redactions.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield granted the motion to seal. Docket entries 1677 and 1684 will remain sealed, with access limited to the parties and people identified in an appendix, and the clerk was directed to close the motions at Docket Nos. 1676 and 1683.
The detailed version
- In re Foreign Exchange Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litigation · No. 1:13-cv-07789
- Lorna Schofield
- Sept. 1, 2022
Background
Credit Suisse AG, Credit Suisse Group AG, and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC filed a motion to decertify the class. The parties also filed letter motions seeking to seal exhibits submitted with their legal memoranda. This order addresses the sealing requests; it does not state a ruling on class decertification.
Reasons for Sealing
The court explained that the public’s common-law right to inspect judicial documents is not absolute and must be balanced against competing interests. It found that filing the documents under seal was necessary to prevent unauthorized disclosure of personal information, including information concerning people subject to foreign data-privacy regimes. The court also found sealing necessary for deposition transcripts containing confidential business information that no party or the court relied on in briefing or deciding the motion. The transcripts were included as exhibits because they were next to relevant portions. The court further found that sealing excerpts, rather than filing them in redacted form, was necessary to prevent speculation and misleading inferences about possible redactions.
Ruling
Judge Lorna G. Schofield ordered that the motion to seal be granted. Documents filed at Docket Nos. 1677 and 1684 must remain sealed, and access is limited to the parties and the individuals identified in the attached appendix. The clerk was directed to close the motions at Docket Nos. 1676 and 1683.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.