Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Gorman

Opinion

KAPLAN HECKER & FINK LLP REI USDC SDNY DOCUMENT DIRECT DIAL _— 212-763-0883 ELECTRONICALLY FILED DIRECT EMAIL = shecker@kaplanhecker.com DOC #: DATE FILED;__ 10/4/2022 September 30, 2022

VIA EMAIL & ECF The Honorable Victor Marrero United States District Court Southern District of New York 500 Pearl Street New York, New York 10007 Re: CFTC vy. Gorman, No. 21-cv-00870 (VM) Dear Judge Marrero: We represent Defendant John Gorman in the above-captioned case. This letter-motion respectfully seeks permission to maintain redactions of non-party personal identifying information from exhibits that accompany today’s concurrently filed motion to dismiss two counts of the CFTC’s complaint. In addition to a memorandum of law, Mr. Gorman’s motion to dismiss includes a declaration from the undersigned and four accompanying exhibits that are “integral to the complaint” and appropriate for consideration on a motion to dismiss. Chambers v. Time Warner, Inc., 282 F.3d 147, 153 (2d Cir. 2002). Those as-filed exhibits redact certain personal information (e.g., names, email addresses, and phone numbers) for individuals who are not parties to the matter. Their names and contact information are irrelevant to the meaning and significance of the documents in which they appear, and unredacted versions of the same documents were produced to the Plaintiff, the CFTC, at least three years ago. Because there is no discernible public interest in the names or contact information of these non-parties, and in order to protect their privacy interests, we respectfully request that the Court permit Mr. Gorman to maintain these redactions. Redactions like those sought by this motion are appropriate because particular “privacy interests” outweigh the qualified public night of access to judicial documents. See generally Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d 110, 119-20 (2d Cir. 2006) (describing applicable balancing test). Courts regularly find the balance tips in favor of protecting individual non-parties’ personal identifiable information “[b]ecause of [their] significant privacy interests,” “the lack of relevance of this information to any issue in [a] litigation,” Kewazinga Corp. v. Microsoft Corp., 2021 WL 1222122, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 31, 2021), and the “minimal countervailing public interest in the disclosure of such personally identifying information” for unrelated, non-parties, Brown v. Maxwell, 929 F.3d 41, 48 n.22 (2d Cir. 2019).

KAPLAN HECKER & FINK LLP

We therefore ask the Court to exercise its discretion to permit the redactions and protect the privacy interests of individual non-parties to this litigation. Thank you for your consideration of this request. Respectfully submitted,

Sean Hecker Michael Ferrara Justin Horton Molly K. Webster KAPLAN HECKER & FINK LLP 350 Fifth Avenue, 63" Floor New York, NY 10118 Tel: (212) 763-0883 Fax: (212) 564-0883 shecker@kaplanhecker.com mferrara@kaplanhecker.com jhorton@kaplanhecker.com mwebster@kaplanhecker.com Counsel for Defendant John Gorman

ce: Counsel for Plaintiff, the CFTC (by ECF)

Request GRANTED. Defendant's request to maintain redactions of non-party personal identifying information from exhibits filed with its Motion to Dismiss is granted. The un-redacted versions shall remain under seal. SO ORDERED. AA 10/4/2022 LEZ OE SS DATE FOR TOR MARRERO,