U.S. v. Brutus Trading, LLC

Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

Date Filed: April 30, 2025

Background: In October 2024, Times Media Limited, the London-based publisher of The Times of London, sought to unseal court records filed in connection with a motion to revive a False Claims Act lawsuit in which Brutus Trading, LLC, alleged that Standard Chartered Bank engaged in banking practices that violated U.S. sanctions against Iran. 

Years prior, the U.S. government had intervened in the case and, alleging that it had not found evidence to support Brutus Trading’s allegations, had successfully asked the district court to dismiss the lawsuit against the bank. Brutus Trading filed a motion in October 2024 asserting that the government had evidence of the bank’s wrongdoing and was wrong to ask the district court to toss out the case. Brutus Trading asked the district court to vacate its decision dismissing Brutus Trading’s complaint, and filed its purported evidence under seal as an exhibit to its motion. That exhibit, according to Brutus Trading, is a digital file that contains data proving that Standard Chartered Bank continued processing transactions in violation of sanctions against Iran and other funders of terrorism.

Times Media sought to make that exhibit public.

Without making on-the-record findings, the district court denied the motion to unseal in a footnote, citing unspecified privacy concerns. 

Our Position: In a friend-of-the-court brief joined by The Associated Press, Dow Jones & Co., ProPublica, and the original news intervenor, Times Media, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press urges the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to reverse the district court’s order denying unsealing and remand for specific, on-the-record findings as required under the First Amendment and common law. The media coalition takes no position on the merits of the underlying litigation but observes that:

• The exhibit to an adjudicated dispositive motion is presumptively open to the public under the First Amendment and the common law.

• The Second Circuit should reverse the sealing order because neither the First Amendment nor the common law presumption was overcome.

• The exhibit was sealed in its entirety and without specific, on-the-record findings.

From the Brief: “Access will provide the public and the press with information relevant to their understanding of the District Court’s determinations on whether an international bank with ties to the United States violated U.S. and international money laundering and sanctions laws and whether the beneficiaries of such alleged violations were terrorists or state sponsors of terrorism. It will also shed light on whether the Government was aware of any such evidence, or whether, as the Government insists, these allegations are unfounded.”