MAINTAINING CONFIDENTIALITY WHEN PETITIONING FOR RELIEF IN
COURT
A long-running dispute between Pennsylvania National Mutual
Casualty Insurance Company and one of its reinsurers, Everest
Reinsurance Company, recently culminated in the unsealing of an
award from an arbitration to which Everest had not been a party.
Everest was able to obtain this result despite the fact that Penn
National had withdrawn its petition to confirm the award (and
accompanying motion to seal) mere days after filing and the
district court had made no substantive decision based on the award
or relied on it in any way.
After the dispute made its way to the Third Circuit for a second
time, the court held that the arbitration award was a judicial
record to which a common law right of access applied and that Penn
National had not demonstrated a specific harm to overcome the
presumption of public access.1 Following remand to
the district court, the award was finally unsealed earlier this
year.
