# Opinion

> District Court, S.D. New York · May 11, 2026

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/11390074

## Case

- **Full name:** In re: Concrete and Cement Additives Antitrust Litigation
- **Court:** District Court, S.D. New York
- **Decided:** May 11, 2026
- **Opinion:** 100trialcourt
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

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## Opinion text

USDC SDNY
DOCUMENT
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT ELECTRONICALLY FILED
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK DOC #:
DATE FILED:__ 5/11/2026 _
IN RE: CONCRETE AND CEMENT ADDITIVES
ANTITRUST LITIGATION
24-md-3097 (LJL)
This documents Relates To: MEMORANDUM &
ORDER
ALL ACTIONS

LEWIS J. LIMAN, United States District Judge:
Former Defendant Compagnie De Saint-Gobain S.A. (“Saint-Gobain”) moves to
maintain under seal certain information, see Dkt. No. 428, included in the Direct Purchaser
Plaintiffs’ First Amended Consolidated Class Action Complaint (““FACCAC”), see Dkt. No. 339-
1, and the Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs’ Corrected Second Amended Consolidated Class Action
Complaint (““CSACCAC”), see Dkt. No. 339-2, as well as quotations from and reference to such
materials in memoranda addressed to this Court. In line with Saint-Gobain’s request, Defendants
and Plaintiffs in this case have also filed letter motions to maintain under seal their respective
motions to dismiss, oppositions to those motions, and replies in further support of those motions
pending resolution of Saint-Gobain’s motion. Dkt. Nos. 381, 416, 429. The motions are denied.
The following docket numbers shall be unsealed: Dkt. Nos. 320, 326, 339, 377, 382, 385, 389,
394, 400, 420, 423, 430, 434, 437, 442.
Saint-Gobain was originally named as a defendant in this multi-district litigation alleging
a price-fixing conspiracy. On August 10, 2025, it reached a settlement with Plaintiffs which
required it, among other things, to share information with Plaintiffs related to this case. Dkt. No.
310-1 § 14; Dkt. No. 312-2 4 14. Pursuant to that agreement, Saint-Gobain shared certain
information with Plaintiffs that is quoted in the FACCAC and the CSACCAC. Dkt. No. 338 at

1. The information concerns communications among representatives of certain of the defendant
companies in this case concerning price increases for the product at issue in this case in Spring
2021, Winter 2021/2022, and Spring 2022.
Saint-Gobain argues that the information should remain under seal for three reasons: (1)
public disclosure could undermine one or more pending government investigations, Dkt. No. 338

at 2; (2) the redacted information includes “highly confidential and competitively sensitive
information” about Saint-Gobain’s business and pricing strategies, id.; and (3) “Saint-Gobain’s
ability to comply with its obligations under the French Blocking Statute outweighs the benefit of
public disclosure,” id. at 2–3; see also Dkt. No. 428 at 2–3.
There is a presumption of public access to judicial documents. See Lugosch v. Pyramid
Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d 110, 119–20 (2d Cir. 2006); Brown v. Maxwell, 929 F.3d 41, 47–48
(2d Cir. 2019). A judicial document is one “relevant to the performance of the judicial function
and useful in the judicial process.” Brown, 929 F.3d at 49 (quoting United States v. Amodeo, 44
F.3d 141, 145 (2d Cir. 1995)). If a document is determined to be a judicial document, then the

Court must assess the “weight of the presumption” of public access against any “countervailing
factors.” Lugosch, 435 F.3d at 119–20.
“[A]ll documents submitted in connection with, and relevant to, such judicial decision-
making are subject to at least some presumption of public access.” Brown, 929 F.3d at 50. “[I]n
discussing the continuum along which the strength of the presumption will be measured, . . .
where documents are used to determine litigants’ substantive legal rights, a strong presumption
of access attaches.” Lugosch, 435 F.3d at 121. In other words, “[t]he weight will be strongest
when the documents will ‘directly affect an adjudication’ of the merits and weakest when they
will ‘play only a negligible role.’” Pauwels v. Bank of N.Y. Mellon Corp., 2025 WL 41199, at *1
(S.D.N.Y. Jan. 7, 2025) (quoting Lugosch, 435 F.3d at 121). Pleadings are ‘“used to determine
litigants’ substantive legal rights[]’ and therefore carr[y] a strong presumption of public access.”
Junsub Shim v. Luxury Asset Cap., LLC, 2025 WL 88041, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 10, 2025)
(quoting Lugosch, 435 F.3d at 121); see also Bernstein v. Bernstein Litowitz Berger &
Grossmann LLP, 814 F.3d 132, 139 (2d Cir. 2016) (“easily conclude[ing]” that “a complaint is a

judicial document subject to a presumption of access”); Nielson Consumer LLC v. Circana Grp.,
L.P., 2024 WL 3887152, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 20, 2024) (“[T]here is a strong presumption of
public access to an answer and counterclaims which are ‘central to the determination of . . .
substantive rights.’” (citation omitted)). Court filings submitted in connection with motions to
dismiss are likewise judicial documents to which a strong presumption of public access attaches.
See TileBar v. Glazzio Tiles, 723 F. Supp. 3d 164, 208 (E.D.N.Y. 2024).
If a presumptive right of public access exists, “the proponent of [sealing] must establish
through specific, on the record findings . . . that [sealing] is essential to preserve higher values
and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest.” Courthouse News Serv. v. Corsones, 131 F.4th

59, 67 (2d Cir. 2025) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “Courts have found that
higher values include protecting the confidentiality of grand jury proceedings, protecting minor
victims of sex crimes, protecting a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial, protecting
significant and substantial privacy interests[,] ... preventing danger to persons or property, and
maintaining the integrity of significant activities entitled to confidentiality, such as ongoing
undercover investigations or detection devices.” Id. at 68–69 (citation and internal quotation
marks omitted). Materials submitted in connection with dispositive motions, including motions
to dismiss, should not remain under seal absent the most compelling reasons. Rowe v. Google
LLC, 2022 WL 4467628, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 26, 2022).
The amended complaints at issue here and the dispositive motions to dismiss them are all
judicial documents to which a strong presumption of public access attaches, and Saint-Gobain
has failed to identify sufficiently weight countervailing interests to defeat that presumption.
First, the danger of impairing law enforcement is a countervailing factor supporting
continued sealing, see Lugosch, 435 F.3d at 120, but Saint-Gobain offers no reason to believe

that sealing is necessary to prevent the impairment of law-enforcement objectives. The only
open investigation relevant to this case is by the European Commission. The other investigations
that previously were opened have now been closed. And, as to the European Commission, the
information in sealed form has been provided to the alleged subjects of that investigation—the
Defendants in this case. Saint-Gobain has not identified any reason why the public must be
denied access to the same information in order to satisfy law-enforcement interests.
In each of the cases cited by Saint-Gobain, the law-enforcement authorities themselves
asserted that their interests would be impaired by public disclosures. See United States v. Park,
619 F. Supp. 2d 89, 94–95 (S.D.N.Y. 2009) (upholding redactions detailing an individual’s

cooperation with a government investigation to avoid revealing the identities of the
investigation’s targets and nature of the investigation); United States v. Milken, 780 F. Supp.
123, 127 (S.D.N.Y. 1991) (sealing “information from which the targets, subjects or status of a
government investigation might be inferred”); United States v. Smith, 985 F. Supp. 2d 506, 545
(S.D.N.Y. 2013) (entering protective order proposed by the Government to shield “ongoing
investigations into potentially serious criminal conduct that could be jeopardized by
dissemination of the discovery”). Saint-Gobain has not cited a single case where a court has
sealed information for law-enforcement reasons where law enforcement has not asked that the
information be sealed. Cf. Simmons v. Ferrigno, 2023 WL 3713513, at *3 (W.D.N.Y. May 30,
2023)(“Courts in this Circuit have frequently refused to apply the law enforcement privilege ...
particularly where the party seeking sealing has failed to identify specific harms that might flow
from disclosure.”).
Second, while the protection of confidential commercial information and trade secrets
may overcome the presumption of public access in some cases, see, e.g., Standard Inv.

Chartered, Inc. v. Fin. Indus. Regul. Auth., Ind., 347 F. App’x 615, 617 (2d Cir. 2009) (summary
order); Louis Vuitton Malletier S.A. v. Sunny Merch. Corp., 97 F. Supp. 3d 485, 510–11
(S.D.N.Y. 2015), Saint-Gobain has not demonstrated that such protection is necessary in this
case. In determining whether such information is properly sealed, courts may look to whether
“the information [is] still relevant to the business” and “the degree to which a party would be
competitively harmed if [the information] were revealed.” Jackpocket, Inc. v. Lottomatrix NY
LLC, 2022 WL 17738779, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 15, 2022) (citation and internal quotation marks
omitted). Saint-Gobain has not demonstrated how the conversations quoted in the pleadings
regarding discussions among competitors about price increases in the 2021/2022 time period are

still relevant to its business. More important perhaps, it has not demonstrated any competitive
harm that would befall it if the information that was disclosed to its competitors by Plaintiffs’
pleadings in these cases were also disclosed to members of the public at large. See CBF
Industria de Gusa S/A v. AMCI Holdings, Inc., 2021 WL 4135007, at *4 n.3 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 10,
2021) (“[T]o justify sealing business information, a party must make a particular and specific
demonstration of fact showing that disclosure would result in an injury sufficiently serious to
warrant protection; broad allegations of harm unsubstantiated by specific examples or articulated
reasoning fail to satisfy the test.” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).
Finally, Saint-Gobain relies on the French blocking statute. That statute prevents the
transfer of certain information from France to the United States for use in litigation. See Thomas
Rouhette & Ela Barda, The French Blocking Statute and Cross-Border Discovery, 84 Def.
Couns. J. 1, 2 (2017); see also Societe Nationale Industrielle Aerospatiale v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for S.
Dist. of Iowa, 482 U.S. 522, 526 n.6 (1987). It does not prevent a party in the United States from
sharing information that was produced to it in the United States with other parties in the United
States. Saint-Gobain does not claim that Plaintiffs violated the French blocking statute by
including the information in the pleadings in this case. It would have understood that the reason
why it was sharing such information was for use in this litigation. Dkt. Nos. 310-1 4 14(d)
(stating that the information disclosed pursuant to the Settlement Agreement “shall be used by
Plaintiff solely in connection with the prosecution of the Action”); Dkt. No. 312-2 § 14 (same).
It has not identified any affront to French sovereign interests if the information 1s also shared
with the United States public pursuant to the strong presumption of public access that exists in
this country.
The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to close Dkt. Nos. 318, 338, 339, 377, 381,
416, 428, 429, and 446 and to unseal Dkt. Nos. 320, 326, 339, 377, 382, 385, 389, 394, 400, 420,
423, 430, 434, 437, 442.
SO ORDERED.

Dated: May 11, 2026
New York, New York LEWIS J. LIMAN
United States District Judge

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/11390074. Public record. Not legal advice.