U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Crowd Machine, Inc.

• Court: District Court, N.D. California
• Decided: January 4, 2024
• Docket: 4:22-cv-00076
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA OAKLAND DIVISION 8 U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE Case No.: 4:22-cv-00076-HSG 9 COMMISSION, Hon. Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr, 10 Plaintiff, ORDER GRANTING 11 DEFENDANTS’ ADMINISTRATIVE v. MOTION TO FILE DOCUMENTS 12 UNDER SEAL CROWD MACHINE, INC., METAVINE, INC, 13 and CRAIG DEREL SPROULE, 14 Defendants, 15 16 and 17 METAVINE PTY. LTD., 18 Relief Defendant, 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 1 ORDER 2 The Court, having considered Defendant’s Administrative Motion to File Documents 3 Under Seal, and the Declaration of Anne Osborne in support thereof, HEREBY ORDERS 4 THAT: 5 1. The Court finds there are compelling reasons sufficient to overcome the 6 presumption in favor of granting public access to the documents below. “Courts have found that 7 ‘confidential business information’ in the form of … ‘financial terms … and business strategies’ 8 satisfies the ‘compelling reasons’ standard.” Baird v. BlackRock Inst. Trust. Co., N.A., 403 9 F.Supp.3d 765, 792 (N.D. Cal. 2019) (Gilliam, J.) (quoting In re Qualcomm Litig., 2017 WL 10 5176922, at *2 (S.D. Cal. Nov. 8, 2017)) (emphasis added). Courts find compelling reasons to 11 seal records where filings may “become a vehicle for improper purposes, such as the use of 12 records to . . . release trade secrets.” In re Elec. Arts, Inc., 298 F. App’x 568, 569 (9th Cir. 2008) 13 (internal quotation and citation omitted). 14 2. Further, courts in the Ninth Circuit routinely find compelling reasons to seal 15 personally-identifying information, finding that risks associated with disclosing such information 16 may outweigh the public’s interest to access. See, e.g., Cancino Castellar v. Mayorkas, 2021 WL 17 3678440, at*3-4 (S.D. Cal. Aug. 19, 2021) (collecting cases). 18 3. Finally, “Courts generally accept attorney-client privilege and the work-product 19 doctrine as a ‘compelling reason’ justifying a motion to seal.” WatchGuard Techs., Inc. v. iValue 20 Infosolutions Pvt. Ltd., 2017 WL 3581624, at *2 (W.D. Wash. Aug. 18, 2017) (collecting cases). 21 4. Accordingly, Plaintiff’s Administrative Motion is GRANTED, and the Clerk of 22 the Court is directed to accept the under-seal filing of the following materials: 23 // 24 25 26 27 28 1 Docket No. Document Portion(s) Evidence Offered in Ruling Public / to Seal Support of Sealing 2 (Sealed) 3 52-1 Declaration of Anne with Osborne Decl. ¶¶ 4-6, Granted (50-1) Osborne in support redactions 8(j) 4 of Defendants’ opposition to confidential financial 5 Plaintiff’s motion and commercially- for monetary relief sensitive information; 6 personally-identifying 7 information 52-3 Exhibit A: Expert with Osborne Decl. ¶¶ 4-6, Granted 8 (50-2) report of Christian redactions 8(a) Tregillis 9 confidential financial and commercially- 10 sensitive information 11 52-4 Exhibit B: entire Osborne Decl. ¶¶ 4-6, Granted (50-3) Documents relied document 8(b) 12 upon in expert report under seal of Christian Tregillis confidential financial 13 and commercially- 14 sensitive information; proprietary product 15 information 52-5 Exhibit C: with Osborne Decl. ¶¶ 4-6, Granted 16 (51) Supplemental expert redactions 8(c) report of Christian 17 Tregillis confidential financial 18 and commercially- sensitive 19 52-6 Exhibit D: Metavine entire Osborne Decl. ¶¶ 4-6, Granted (51-1) Genesis release document 8(d) 20 notes under seal 21 confidential financial and commercially- 22 sensitive information; proprietary product 23 information 24 52-7 Exhibit E: with Osborne Decl. ¶¶ 4-7, Granted (51-2) Defendants’ written redactions 8(e) 25 responses to SEC confidential financial 26 and commercially- sensitive information; 27 personally-identifying information 28 1 52-8 Exhibit F: Document with Osborne Decl. ¶¶ 4-7, Granted (51-3) produced to SEC redactions 8(f) 2 3 confidential financial and commercially- 4 sensitive information; personally-identifying 5 information; proprietary product 6 information 7 52-9 Exhibit G: Letter entire Osborne Decl. ¶¶ 4-6, Granted (51-4) from public document 8(g) 8 accounting and under seal consulting firm re confidential financial 9 ISRS 4400 and commercially- sensitive information 10 52-12 Exhibit J: with Osborne Decl. ¶¶ 4-7, Granted 11 (51-5) Production cover redactions 8(h) letters produced to 12 SEC confidential financial and commercially- 13 sensitive information; 14 personally-identifying information 15 52-13 Exhibit K: entire Osborne Decl. ¶¶ 4-7, Granted (51-6) Defendants’ current document 8(i) 16 financial information under seal confidential financial 17 and commercially- 18 sensitive information 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 1 || IT IS SO ORDERED. 3 || Date: 1/4/2024 Haywerl 3 Hon. Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr, 5 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 CASE NO. 4:22-CV-00076-HSG