Thales Avionics, Inc. v. L3 Technologies, Inc.

Background

Thales Avionics asked the court for permission to file certain materials under seal in support of its request for a preliminary injunction related to arbitration. The materials included a redacted memorandum of law, the declaration of Philippe More, and fourteen exhibits.

The listed exhibits included a confidentiality agreement, correspondence and emails between the parties, a draft membership interest purchase agreement, and a request for arbitration submitted to the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce.

Arguments and sealing standard

The request stated that the documents concerned L3 Technologies’ efforts to sell its entire avionics business. Thales said a confidentiality agreement between the parties’ parent companies required certain financial, technical, product, sales, asset, liability, operational, and transaction-related information to remain confidential. Thales also said L3 had treated the documents and communications as confidential.

The request discussed the presumption that judicial documents should generally be available to the public. It cited decisions explaining that business secrecy, privacy interests, and the risk of competitive harm can sometimes justify sealing or redaction. Thales acknowledged that the parties’ agreement to keep information confidential would not, by itself, overcome the public-access presumption.

Thales stated that it did not object to the documents being filed publicly but asked the court to grant the request provisionally because it had not been able to confer with L3’s counsel, who had not appeared in the action. Thales sought to give L3 an opportunity to address whether some or all of the documents should remain sealed.

Ruling

Judge John G. Koeltl’s order states: “APPLICATION GRANTED” and “SO ORDERED.” The application to file the identified materials under seal was therefore granted. The order does not separately state whether the sealing was temporary or permanent, identify which documents would remain sealed, or decide the underlying request for a preliminary injunction or any arbitration-related merits question.