Frontier Airlines, Inc. v. AMCK Aviation Holdings Ireland Limited

Background

Co-counsel for certain remaining defendants asked the court to seal the Declaration of Javier Meireles and its accompanying exhibits. The request concerned documents filed in connection with the defendants’ proposed guarantor and its balance sheet.

The request stated that the Meireles Declaration contained the defendants’ analysis of the proposed guarantor’s balance sheet. It also stated that Exhibits A and C contained email excerpts about another nonparty’s balance sheet and that Exhibit B was a copy of that nonparty’s balance sheet. The defendants argued that the documents contained nonpublic financial information, confidential business information, and information implicating the nonparty’s privacy interests.

Parties’ Position

The defendants acknowledged that judicial documents generally carry a presumption of public access. They argued that the presumption was weak here because the documents did not directly affect an adjudication and instead concerned information whose relevance to monitoring the federal courts was limited. They further argued that privacy interests and the protection of confidential business information outweighed the public’s presumed right of access.

The request also noted that the court had previously granted Frontier’s request to seal related materials, including the Wetzel Declaration and a balance sheet, because those materials contained financial analysis and confidential information of defendants.

Ruling

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer granted the defendants’ letter motion to seal. The order’s stated disposition was: “Granted. SO ORDERED.” The provided opinion does not separately identify which individual pages or portions of the declaration and exhibits were sealed beyond describing the requested Sealed Documents.