In re Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd. Securities Litigation
- Lewis Liman
- 1:20-cv-08585
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 8
In re Turquoise Hill Resources v. Rio Tinto, Judge Liman granted amendment and partly granted, partly denied sealing requests.
The Pentwater Funds, Rio Tinto plc, Rio Tinto Limited, Jean-Sébastien Jacques, Arnaud Soirat, and the third parties whose names appeared in the filings were affected by the amendment and sealing rulings.
What happened
In re Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd. Securities Litigation concerns Lead Plaintiff the Pentwater Funds’ request to file a Third Amended Consolidated Class Action Complaint and the parties’ requests to redact or seal court filings.
The court granted permission to file the amended complaint. It also granted in part and denied in part the requests to restrict public access to documents, allowing some protection for private names and detailed business information but rejecting broader redactions.
Judge Lewis J. Liman ordered a seven-day pause before the ruling took effect and directed the parties to file the specified documents publicly by January 19, 2024, unless they identified another basis for continued sealing.
The detailed version
- In re Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd. Securities Litigation · No. 1:20-cv-08585
- Lewis Liman
- Jan. 8, 2024
Background
Lead Plaintiff the Pentwater Funds moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(2) for permission to file a Third Amended Consolidated Class Action Complaint. The parties also filed several requests to redact or seal materials connected with a discovery dispute and the proposed amended complaint.
Amendment
The court found that Lead Plaintiff had shown good cause for filing the proposed amended complaint and exercised its discretion to grant the motion. The court therefore granted Lead Plaintiff’s Motion for Leave to File the Third Amended Consolidated Class Action Complaint.
Sealing and Redaction Rulings
For the materials connected with Lead Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel, the court granted the request to redact the name of a former Rio Tinto employee. It also granted the request to keep Exhibits 3 through 6 under seal, to redact references to those exhibits in the motion, and to file Exhibit 6 with the redactions proposed by Defendants. The court described the exhibits as containing information about project briefing materials, commercial strategy, project schedules, budgets, development progress, cost tracking, and press strategies.
The court denied Defendants’ request to redact portions of Exhibit A to their opposition to the Motion to Compel. It found that the information was high-level and nonspecific and that Defendants had not explained specifically how it was commercially sensitive or how disclosure would harm them.
For Lead Plaintiff’s motion to file the amended complaint, the court denied the parties’ requests to redact portions of the supporting memorandum except for the names of third-party witnesses. It likewise denied the requests to redact portions of the proposed amended complaint except for those witness names. The court found that the information was broad and dated, and that the public’s right to access documents directly related to the court’s decision outweighed the asserted confidentiality concerns.
Disposition
Lead Plaintiff’s motion for leave to file the Third Amended Consolidated Class Action Complaint was GRANTED. Lead Plaintiff’s and Defendants’ letter motions to seal were GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. Judge Lewis J. Liman stayed the effect of the order for seven days so the parties could identify any overlooked basis for continued sealing. Without such a submission, the parties were directed to confer and file the documents publicly by January 19, 2024, but not earlier than January 16, 2024. The Clerk was directed to close Docket Nos. 273, 276, 280, 305, 309, and 312.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.