The extent to which the names, addresses and other identifying information about creditors will be redacted in public filings seems to depend in New York upon the nature of the debtor’s business and, perhaps, on the judge.

In late September, Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn of New York did not permit the extent of redactions requested by a so-called crypto debtor. He only allowed the debtor to redact the home and email addresses of individual customers and creditors, “to protect the individuals from harassment and identity theft.”

Judge Glenn required the crypto debtor to file schedules showing the creditors’ names and how much they are owed, without showing individual creditors’ home or email addresses. However, he required the debtor to show the physical and email addresses of corporate or business customers and creditors. See In re Celsius Network LLC, 22-10964, 2022 BL 342784, 2022 Bankr Lexis 2672 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Sept. 28, 2022). To read ABI’s report, click here.

Judge Glenn conceded that his decision was at odds with a recent case in New York and two from the bankruptcy court in Delaware.

One month later, Bankruptcy Judge James L. Garrity, Jr., of New York ruled on a similar redaction motion by a debtor holding sensitive information about creditors, employees and shareholders. Indeed, the personally identifying information might have been more sensitive than it was in Judge Glenn’s case because tort creditors in Judge Garrity’s case have claims arising from the sale of opioids and transvaginal surgical mesh products.

In his November 2 opinion, Judge Garrity allowed the debtor to redact the home addresses and email addresses of individual tort claimants from any court paper. Unlike Judge Glenn, he went further by allowing the redaction of the tort creditors’ names. Naturally, Judge Garrity directed the debtor to provide the official committees and the U.S. Trustee with unredacted information under strictures of confidentiality.

In the case before Judge Garrity, creditors are not yet being required to file proofs of claim. When the time comes, the debtor promised to seek authority for similar redactions. To the extent that creditors file claims in the meantime, Judge Garrity allowed the debtor “to withhold publication of individuals’ proofs of claim.”

Judge Garrity devoted a substantial part of his 36-page opinion to explaining why broader redactions were appropriate to avoid “identity theft or stalking and intimate partner violence.” Based on statistics from the Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control, he said that the threats were “real, not theoretical.”

In reaching his conclusions, Judge Garrity explained the statutory and rule-based grounds for redactions. Of course, he began from the “strong presumption and public policy in favor of public access to records.” [Note from this writer: The presumption arose decades before identity theft began afflicting substantial portions of the population every year.]

While Section 107(a) codifies the common law right to public access, Judge Garrity explained how Section 107(c) provides exceptions to the general rule by allowing the court, for “cause,” to “protect an individual” from disclosure of information that “would create undue risk of identity theft or other unlawful injury to the individual or to the individual’s property.”

Similarly, Bankruptcy Rule 1007(j) allows the court to “impound[] . . . the lists filed under this rule [and to] refuse to permit inspection by any entity.” Judge Garrity cited 28 U.S.C. § 1028(d)(7) for a “non-exclusive list of personally identifiable information” that may be redacted.

We recommend reading the opinions by Judges Glenn and Garrity in full text to grasp the nuances in the redactions they permitted (or didn’t permit) and the grounds for their conclusions.