Huzhou Chuangtai Rongyuan Investment Management Partnership v. Qin

Background

The petitioners—Huzhou Chuangtai Rongyuan Investment Management Partnership, Huzhou Huihengying Equity Investment Partnership, and Huzhou Huirongsheng Equity Investment Partnership—requested permission to file a memorandum with redactions and specified exhibits and appendices under seal. The materials related to the petitioners’ renewed motion to compel, for sanctions, and for an order of civil contempt against Hui Qin.

The requested sealed materials included responses to post-judgment discovery demands, bank-account statements, an email, a transcript of a court conference, WeChat communications, a document marked confidential, deposition transcripts, and charts containing excerpts from discovery responses and a deposition. The petitioners stated that the materials contained sensitive personal or financial information, including bank-account information, addresses, tax-return information, property information, and information about minor family members. Some materials had also been designated confidential under the parties’ stipulated protective order.

Legal standard described in the application

The application described a presumption that judicial documents should be publicly accessible. It stated that the Court must balance that presumption against competing interests, including privacy interests. The petitioners argued that the privacy and confidentiality interests here overcame the presumption of public access.

Ruling

The Court’s order states: “Application GRANTED.” Judge Katherine Polk Failla directed the Clerk of Court to maintain docket entries 175 and 176 under seal, viewable only by the parties and the Court. The Clerk was also directed to terminate the motion at docket entry 171. The order does not separately describe which portions of the memorandum were redacted.