From Justice of the Peace Choose Katharine Parker (S.D.N.Y.) Thursday in Ap-Fonden v. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.:
This securities fraud litigation, filed in 2018 arises out of the 1Malaysia Growth Berhad (“1MDB”) scandal. Plaintiffs have been buyers in Defendant the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (“Goldman”). The events have moved to seal supplies submitted in reference to Plaintiff’s movement for sophistication certification….
As a preliminary matter, paperwork submitted in assist of a movement for sophistication certification are judicial paperwork to which the presumption of public entry [to court records] would apply….
In assist of its software to keep up sure paperwork underneath seal, and to permit for the submitting of different reveals with redactions, Goldman notes that it seeks to redact people’ names and different private figuring out info of present and former Goldman workers in addition to two entities and people unaffiliated with Goldman. Goldman states that none of these workers or entities have been implicated in any of the alleged wrongdoing on the middle of this case. Due to this fact, Goldman states, “it might be patently unfair and extremely prejudicial to those people to reveal [their] names.”
Whereas redactions of names and private info of non-parties is sometimes permitted on this district, notably on the class certification part, Plaintiffs dispute whether or not the underlying nonparties are literally implicated within the 1MDB Fraud. Actually, among the many names redacted in Goldman’s submissions is Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s then-chairman, and who’s statements about 1MDB are particularly at problem within the movement for sophistication certification. Equally, Plaintiff alleges that a few of the names Goldman seeks to redact embrace people who testified publicly on the trial of Roger Ng (one of many architects of the 1MDB fraud.)
In any occasion, Goldman doesn’t contend that its workers or their titles are nonpublic. Due to this fact, whereas they could preserve a privateness curiosity in having private particulars similar to cellphone numbers, e mail addresses, or precise addresses, they don’t have the same privateness curiosity within the reality of their employment at Goldman in the course of the related interval.
Even when Goldman saved the names of its workers confidential, which it doesn’t, the allegation that unsealing the paperwork could be “unfair” and “prejudicial” to the people named therein is not more than “broad allegations of hurt unsubstantiated by particular examples or articulated reasoning.” On the very least, it isn’t detailed sufficient for this Courtroom to make the “particular, on the report findings” that sealing right here is critical to serve increased values….
