From Decide Naomi Reice Buchwald’s opinion Thursday in Caremark, L.L.C. v. N.Y. Most cancers & Blood Specialists, Inc.:
Petitioners Caremark, L.L.C., … SilverScript Insurance coverage Firm, and Aetna, Inc. search to file their petition to vacate an arbitration award underneath seal; or, within the various, partially underneath seal; or, within the second various, with some redactions….
Respondent New York Most cancers & Blood Specialists (“respondent” or “NYCBS”) is a neighborhood most cancers heart with places in New York Metropolis and Lengthy Island. Caremark is a Pharmacy Profit Supervisor (“PBM”), which creates and manages pharmacy networks and prescription drug advantages on behalf of Medicare Half D plan sponsors…. NYCBS commenced arbitration proceedings in opposition to petitioners to recuperate charges that petitioners allegedly improperly imposed on NYCBS…. [T]he arbitration panel dominated in favor of NYCBS on a number of claims and awarded it roughly $17,000,000 in damages in addition to attorneys’ charges and curiosity…. [P]etitioners filed a petition to vacate the arbitration award….
[T]here’s a “general presumption in favor of public access to judicial documents.” … [T]he paperwork petitioners filed in help of their movement to vacate are “judicial documents” as a result of they’re undoubtedly “relevant to the performance of the judicial function and useful in the judicial process.” … [T]hese judicial paperwork are entitled to a robust presumption of entry provided that they “directly affect” the Court docket’s adjudication of the petition to vacate…. [And] in opposition to this sturdy presumption of public entry, petitioners have didn’t “articulate a compelling countervailing rationale for filing the documents under seal.”
To beat the presumption of entry, petitioners first argue that the Court docket ought to seal the case, or at the least massive swaths of the file, pursuant to the confidentiality clause within the events’ arbitration settlement. Nonetheless, “[c]ourts in this District have long held that bargained-for confidentiality does not overcome the presumption of access to judicial documents.” …
Petitioners subsequent argue that they need to be permitted to seal or redact sure paperwork that purportedly include commerce secrets and techniques. Petitioners haven’t proven, nonetheless, that any paperwork within the file include commerce secrets and techniques. A commerce secret is any “formula, pattern, device, or compilation of information which is used in one’s business, and which gives him an opportunity to obtain an advantage over competitors who do not know or use it.” For one factor, petitioners fail to articulate with any specificity how disclosure would trigger “a clearly defined and very serious injury” to their aggressive place. Fairly, petitioners depend on blanket assertions akin to that “[t]he competitive standing of [petitioners] will be severely prejudiced if this information enters the public sphere” as a result of “Caremark’s competitors can use [this information] to their advantage.” Such “vague and conclusory allegations will not suffice” to point out proof of aggressive hurt.
Moreover, the “most important consideration in determining whether information is a trade secret is whether the information was secret.” A lot of the data that petitioners search to seal or redact, nonetheless, is already within the public file. Certainly, in one other case involving petitioners, the courtroom refused to seal related data for a similar motive. Furthermore, lots of the paperwork that petitioners need redacted include data that’s as much as seven years previous. Petitioners haven’t proven that disclosure of such “outdated and stale” data “would result in any competitive harm.” …
Lastly, petitioners’ makes an attempt to downplay the general public curiosity on this case are unpersuasive. The underlying dispute entails petitioners’ use of Medicare Half D monies. Courts have acknowledged the general public’s “right of access to court documents and its interest in knowing how its tax monies are being spent in a matter of public importance.” Moreover, the particular sort of charges which might be on the coronary heart of this dispute have been the topic of a number of authorities hearings and investigations. Subsequently, there might be no query that the general public has a robust curiosity within the paperwork filed on this case….