Petitioner Supports ITC’s Controversial Redaction of Its Confidential Information at CIT

After Court of International Trade Judge Stephen Vaden questioned the International Trade Commission in an oral hearing for what he considered to be over-redaction of a petitioner’s record information (see 2404010066), that petitioner supported the ITC’s decision in a brief May 22 (OCP v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 21-00219).

The petitioner, The Mosaic Company, argued that some of the information the trade court described as publicly available “would cause serious commercial harm to Mosaic if disclosed to the public.” It said that information was “not substantially equivalent” to the publicly available version, as the redacted information provides details on the number, types, locations and contracts of distribution facilities used by Mosaic.

It called this information “highly valuable” to its competitors, giving them “a roadmap” by which to identify and target its customers.

“The Court identified Mosaic’s 2022 Form 10-K at pages 14-15 as containing publicly available information similar to the information contained in the quoted statement,” Mosaic said. “However, Mosaic’s 2022 Form 10-K at pages 14-15 describes Mosaic’s distribution activities in general terms.”

Meanwhile, two other statements must stay redacted because, if revealed, they would “impair the ITC’s ability to conduct investigations,” Mosaic said.

“U.S. producers would be less willing to provide detailed information about their operations to the ITC in questionnaire responses and other written submissions if there is a risk that the information might be publicly disclosed in subsequent litigation -- particularly if the disclosure happens over the submitter’s objections,” it said.

It requested confidential treatment for those three items.

However, the petitioner said it was not requesting confidentiality for a number of other statements described in the court’s order regarding confidentiality, noting that its counsel had said as much during the oral hearing as well.

The ITC itself responded in a previous brief to the court earlier in May, saying that the confidential nature of a business’ information is not negated by the fact the public may be able to deduce some of it from public sources (see 2405100022).