Chiquita Brands Int'l v. SEC, No. 14-5030 (D.C. Cir. 2015)
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The NSA requested investigative materials, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq., that the SEC had gathered involving payments made to paramilitary groups in Colombia by a subsidiary of Chiquita. Chiquita requested that the Commission deny the Archive’s request, arguing that releasing the records at this point in time would
deprive the company of a fair trial in pending multi-district litigation in Florida. The court construed Exemption 7(B) narrowly and according to its text, the same way the Commission did here: to apply when the release of documents would likely deprive a party of a fair trial, not merely complicate the discovery schedule. In this case, the Commission properly disposed of Chiquita’s arguments on the ground that the company could not show how disclosure would matter in the big picture and impact the fairness of a future trial. This is the proper legal standard under both the text of Exemption 7(B) and Washington Post Co. v. U.S. Dep't of Justice. Finally, the court concluded that the Commission reasonably applied Exemption 7(B) and concluded that disclosure of the records to the Archive will not “seriously interfere with the fairness” of the Florida proceedings. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court and vacated the injunction pending appeal.
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