Opinion
2:24-cv-00993-CDS-EJY
08-01-2024
EVOLUTION MALTA LIMITED, EVOLUTION GAMING MALTA LIMITED, EVOLUTION GAMING LIMITED, and SIA EVOLUTION LATVIA, Plaintiff, v. LIGHT & WONDER, INC. f/k/a SCIENTIFIC GAMES CORP. and LNW GAMING, INC. f/k/a SG GAMING, INC., Defendants.
ORDER
ELAYNA J. YOUCHAH, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE.
Pending before the Court is Defendant Light & Wonder, Inc.'s Motion to Seal Exhibit 1 to the Declaration of Jennifer Bennett in Support of the Pending Motion to Dismiss. ECF No. 35. L&W sought and was granted permission to temporarily seal Exhibit 1 (a license agreement) on July 25, 2024. ECF No. 37. On July 31, 2024, Plaintiffs filed a response to the Motion to Seal. ECF No. 39. In the response, Plaintiffs explain they had limited time to review and discuss the sealing of the license agreement before it was filed as an attachment to the Motion to Dismiss. Id. Now, having had an opportunity to conduct that review, Plaintiffs state the agreement can be filed on the public docket with redactions. The redactions Plaintiffs seek pertain to specific portions of the license agreement that include confidential business information the disclosure of which could potentially cause competitive harm to Plaintiffs.
Light & Wonder Inc. is referred to herein as “L&W.”
The party “who seek to maintain the secrecy of documents attached to dispositive motions must meet the high threshold of showing that ‘compelling reasons' support secrecy.” Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Saticoy Bay LLC Series 3948 Applecrest, Case No. 2:17-cv-01360-APG-VCF, 2020 WL 2311560, at *2 (D. Nev. Apr. 23, 2020) (quoting Kamakana v. City & County of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1180 (9th Cir. 2006)). Requests to seal documents must be “narrowly tailored” so as to seal “only the material that warrants secrecy.” Id. “Compelling reasons” must “outweigh the general history of access and the public policies favoring disclosure, such as the public interest in understanding the judicial process.” Allegiant Travel Co. v. R2 Sols. LLC, Case No. 2:22-cv-00828-CDS-BNW, 2022 WL 3346666, at *1 (D. Nev. Aug. 11, 2022). “[C]onfidential business information in the form of license agreements, financial terms, details of confidential licensing negotiations, and business strategies satisfies the compelling reasons standard.” Id. at *2 (internal quotations omitted). Courts in the District of Nevada consistently find compelling reasons to grant motions to seal where, as here, the moving party seeks to redact limited confidential information relating to licensing terms, royalty rates, and proprietary business plans. See, e.g., ImageKeeper LLC v. Wright Nat'l Flood Insur. Servs., Case No. 2:20-cv-01470-CDS-MDC, 2024 WL 1330046, at *5 (D. Nev. Mar. 27, 2024) (granting motion to seal information relating to proprietary business information where redactions were “narrowly tailored to only remove confidential information from the public eye”).
The Court finds the limited categories of information Plaintiffs seek to redact are the very types of confidential licensing terms and proprietary business information that courts consistently find support compelling reasons to seal. Thus, the Court finds compelling reasons to keep sealed the unredacted version of the licensing agreement. The Court further finds a redacted version of the agreement can be filed on the publicly available docket.
Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Defendant Light & Wonder, Inc.'s Motion to Seal Exhibit 1 to the Declaration of Jennifer Bennett in Support of the pending Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 35) is GRANTED in part.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Exhibit 1 to the Declaration of Jennifer Bennett at ECF No. 36 is and shall remain sealed.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendant L&W must file a redacted version of Exhibit 1 on the publicly available docket no later than August 12, 2024. The redactions are to comply with Plaintiffs' bullet points on page 4 of their Response to the Motion to Seal found at ECF No. 39.
Before the redacted version of Exhibit 1 is filed, Defendant L&W must show a copy of the redacted Exhibit 1 to Plaintiffs and obtain agreement to file the same.