G.R. SMITH, Magistrate Judge.
In this breach of contract case, plaintiff Steel Erectors moves to compel defendant AIM Steel International to supplement its Fed. R. Civ. P. 7.1 corporate disclosure statement by naming its foreign parent company. Doc. 11. AIM, endeavoring to protect its parent's identity "for competitive and business reasons," doc. 13 at 1, opposes, though "if required, it would submit" its parent's identity in camera. Id.
Under Rule 7.1, "[a] nongovernmental corporate party must file . . . a disclosure statement that: (1) identifies any parent corporation and any publicly held corporation owning 10% or more of its stock." Elaborating, S.D. Ga. L. R. 7.1.1 requires the filing party to "certify a full and complete list of all parties, all officers, directors, or trustees of parties, and all other persons, associations of persons, firms, partnerships, subsidiary or parent corporations, or organizations which have a financial interest in, or another interest which could be substantially affected by, the outcome of the particular case, including any parent or publicly-held corporation that holds ten percent (10%) or more of a party's stock."
The statement exists "to assist district judges in determining whether they might have a financial interest in a corporate entity that is related to a corporate party in a case before them and therefore requires their recusal." 5 WRIGHT & MILLER, FED. PRAC. & PROC. Civ. § 1197 (3d ed. 2010); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 7.1 advisory committee's note ("The information [required by Rule 7.1] will support properly informed disqualification decisions in situations that call for automatic disqualification under Canon 3C(1)(c) [of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges]."). It is not, as plaintiff contends, "designed to provide `full and complete' disclosure to the opposing party so that discovery can be structured to determine the financial identity of the parent corporation." Doc. 11 at 2.
Regardless of its purpose, nothing in Rule 7.1 provides an escape hatch for parties like AIM whose corporate parents wish to remain anonymous. "[N]ongovernmental corporate part[ies]," like AIM, must identify "any parent corporation and any publicly held corporation owning 10% or more of [their] stock" by filing two copies
Still, the Court has discretion to order filings sealed.
AIM has not moved to seal its corporate disclosure statement and offers only conclusory assertions to support its opposition to plaintiff's motion to compel. See doc. 13 at 3 ("AIM's parent company has a private interest in keeping its name out of the public domain for competitive and business reasons."). Denying plaintiff's motion to compel at this stage and allowing AIM to file its disclosure statement in camera, then, would ignore Local Rule 79.7 and relegate the public's right of access to an afterthought.
Nevertheless, the Court, cognizant of "potential litigation abuses,"
AIM also urges the Court to adopt the approach used in Best Odds Corp. v. Ibus Media Ltd., 2014 WL 5687730 (D. Nev. Nov. 4, 2014). There, the court distinguished dispositive and non-dispositive motions and determined that the public's lesser interest in the latter allowed it to grant defendant's motion to file its Rule 7.1 statement in camera upon a showing of good cause under Rule 26(c). Id. at *2. For starters, this Court does not subscribe to the dispositive/non-dispositive dichotomy used by the Ninth Circuit. See Bradley, 2007 WL 1703232 at *2 ("Motions and their attachments, then, are subject to public access, and it makes no difference whether a motion is characterized as dispositive."). And, as discussed above, Rule 26 does not apply to Rule 7.1 statements because they do not constitute discovery materials. Best Odds therefore provides AIM no support.