What is the best way to redact a settlement agreement?
What is a settlement agreement?
What is the name of the company that sued Thermal Engineering Corporation?
Does a settlement agreement in Georgia mean the settlement is confidential?
Does Rec Tec have a secrecy agreement?
What is the best way to redact a settlement agreement?
Whenever feasible, propose redacting the sensitive and/or confidential portions of the settlement agreement, or consider other “less onerous alternatives”, as opposed to fully sealing the agreement. Even then, provide specific factual evidence and case law supporting why allowing public access to the redacted information will cause future harm to the parties.
What is a settlement agreement?
To seal a settlement agreement or not? That is often the question when trade secret, non-compete and other competition-related lawsuits are resolved with a settlement agreement . The terms of the agreement may involve entry of a consent injunction or order and can contain sensitive business information that the parties may prefer to keep confidential and out of the public eye, especially from competitors. To protect the confidentiality of the settlement, parties often request that they be permitted to file the settlement documents under seal or have the court seal the injunction order once it is entered.
What is the name of the company that sued Thermal Engineering Corporation?
For instance, in Rec Tec Indus., LLC v. Thermal Eng’g Corp., No. CV 119-164, 2020 WL 2516046 (S.D. Ga. May 15, 2020), Rec Tec Industries, LLC (“Rec Tec ”) sued Thermal Engineering Corporation for trademark infringement. After resolving the case, the parties filed a joint motion for dismissal, which included a request for the court to enter the parties’ Settlement Agreement as an order of the court. Rec Tec also filed a consent motion to file the Settlement Agreement under seal.
Does a settlement agreement in Georgia mean the settlement is confidential?
However, court proceedings from a recent Georgia federal court decision illustrates that, just because the parties agree the settlement agreement resolving their lawsuit is confidential does not mean that the court will automatically grant a motion to seal the agreement.
Does Rec Tec have a secrecy agreement?
The court also found that Rec Tec had minimal interest in maintaining the secrecy of the terms in the Settlement Agreement. Specifically, Rec Tec had not argued that the terms of the Settlement Agreement constituted trade secrets, and some of the terms could be found elsewhere in the public record, thus lessening Rec Tec’s interests in keeping the terms of the Agreement private. Further, the Agreement did not contain proprietary information, such as product specifications.
