In Re: Celsius Network LLC

Background

Equities First Holdings, LLC, and Alexander Christy, the appellants, filed a motion on December 11, 2023, asking the court to keep certain documents under seal. The appeal concerns a decision from the Bankruptcy Court involving Celsius Network Limited. The motion was docketed at Dkt. No. 40.

Legal standard

The court applied the Second Circuit’s three-step test for sealing court records. First, it determines whether the materials are “judicial documents”—documents submitted to the court that are relevant and useful to the judicial process. Second, it determines how much weight the presumption of public access deserves based on the materials’ role in the court’s work. Third, it identifies legitimate reasons against disclosure and balances those reasons against the public’s interest in access.

Ruling

The court found that the documents were judicial documents, but that the presumption of public access was modest. The information consisted of commercially sensitive business and financial information that was unlikely to have significance for the court’s consideration of the bankruptcy appeal. The court explained that the public-access interest concerned the court’s evaluation of the Bankruptcy Court’s decision, not the merits of the underlying litigation. The potential commercial impact on the appellants outweighed the public interest in disclosure at this time.

The motion to seal was granted for the specified redactions highlighted in yellow and green. The court stated that the decision applied only to the information at issue at this stage of the case and on the existing record. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate the motion at Dkt. No. 40.