FEDERAL COURT, May 20 -- Bank of
America in a civil case against in the Middle District
of Florida is trying to seal basic information about its
policy for denying people bank accounts. The Office of
the Comptroller of the Currency, which loudly claims to
be interested in the issue of debanking, as done
nothing. But on May 20 Inner City Press wrote in to
Magistrate Judge Monte C. Richardson opposing BofA's
request to seal:
This
is a public policy question affecting millions of
Americans who have been denied access to the banking
system. The documents Bank of America seeks to seal go
to the heart of that question:
•
Plaintiff's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment • Bank
of America's 30(b)(6) Deposition Transcript • Bank of
America's Response to Interrogatory No. 2 • Bank of
America's Supplemental Interrogatory Responses and
Objections • Two Bank of America Policy Documents
(Exhibits 8 and 10)
The
two BofA policy documents are the most significant.
Internal bank policies governing who gets denied a basic
checking account are not trade secrets — they are the
operational rules that determine which Americans can
participate in the financial system. Bank of America is subject to
the Community Reinvestment Act, the Equal Credit
Opportunity Act, and federal fair banking regulations.
Its internal account-denial policies are matters of
legitimate public concern.
The
30(b)(6) deposition transcript contains sworn corporate
testimony about those policies. When a major federally
regulated bank testifies under oath about the criteria
it uses to deny banking services to Americans, the
public has a First Amendment and common law right to
know what was said. That right is not extinguished
because the bank prefers privacy.
In
this case, Plaintiff had no choice but to seek sealing
of BofA-designated materials or risk waiving his summary
judgment rights. This is precisely the dynamic that
courts have recognized as problematic: a well-resourced
defendant uses a stipulated protective order to
designate materials as confidential, forcing the
plaintiff to participate in sealing documents the
plaintiff himself does not believe warrant protection.
The
Court should not treat this as a genuinely unopposed
sealing motion. Inner City Press is opposing sealing and
respectfully requests that the Court:
(1)
Deny the motion to seal as to the two Bank of America
policy documents (Exhibits 8 and 10), which are internal
operating policies of a federally regulated bank
affecting the public interest in access to banking
services; and
(2)
Deny the motion to seal as to the 30(b)(6) deposition
transcript, or in the alternative order BofA to file a
redacted version with only specifically identified
genuinely confidential information withheld.
