Zuffa has filed its Reply Brief in Support of its request to seal portion of its Reply Brief in its Motion for Summary Judgment. Essentially, this reply brief is supporting its motion to seal portions in its Motion for Summary Judgment so that the public will not be able to see it.
Zuffa argues that while it provided detailed and “narrowly tailored” reasons for sealing requests, Plaintiffs argued with broad, “boiler-plate arguments” from other opposition briefs. It also claims to have declarations including from Bellator to support its motion to seal whereas Plaintiffs do not.
In its Reply, Zuffa argues that the Court has found that the documents which included confidential business strategy information, including revenue and profit information regarding Zuffa’s Fight Pass product, Zuffa contracts and promotional agreements to be sealed. Plaintiffs did not object at the time. In Plaintiffs defense, they cite to the Order of the Court in this case which states there is no waiver if a party does not object.
It also argues that Plaintiffs’ Opposition does not address the “substantial evidence of the commercial sensitivity of its promotional agreements and negotiations regarding those agreements.” Essentially, they suggest that Plaintiffs’ fail to meet their burden through extrinsic evidence such as declarations or cited testimony. There is no rebuttal evidence to Zuffa’s declarations which is usually the tact in these motions.
Zuffa also contends that the information it seeks to seal is not public knowledge as claimed by Plaintiffs. They try to make a distinction between the contract disclosed in the Eddie Alvarez litigation and widely written about versus its request to seal its contract. Zuffa makes the argument that while some agreements may be public, the negotiations about those agreements and business strategy were properly filed under seal.
As for the argument that some of the information that Zuffa seeks to seal is too old, Zuffa claims that there would still be “highly sensitive information” that should be disclosed from public disclosure due to its commercial sensitivity.
Zuffa’s Reply Brief ISO… by on Scribd
Payout Perspective:
There are multiple motions to seal going on here so its kind of confusing to keep up but basically this Reply Brief supports its Motion for Summary Judgment. It looks like that Zuffa attorneys are watching John and Paul’s twitter timeline for support for their brief to indicate that all is well with the disclosure of information since they have been able to access PACER for these documents. Notably, they do not cite to John’s request for the court to unseal documents and the subsequent response by Zuffa. There seems to be an argument made here that the underlying issue of business strategy and confidential information that is seen underlies the reason for these documents to be sealed. So, does that mean that due to the fact you can extrapolate a business decision based on the contents of a contract, it should not be disclosed to the public? We shall see.
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