US: DOJ seeks to unseal transcripts of AT&T trial bench conferences

In its appeal of the federal ruling against its effort to block the AT&T-Time Warner merger, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is seeking to have certain transcripts unsealed.

The DOJ filed a formal request to specifically have the contents of “bench conferences” revealed. During those moments, when attorneys consulted with the judge and sometimes witnesses at the bench, a white noise machine masked the sound of those conversations in the courtroom. US District Judge Richard J. Leon hit the white-noise button frequently, which suited AT&T’s interests, as certain testimony was also sealed because of its sensitive nature.

In pursuing their appeal of Judge Leon’s June 12 decision in the D.C. Circuit Court, antitrust regulators are saying the public has a right to know what happens in a federal courtroom. “No reason has been provided by either the defendants or the district court why the trial transcript should not now be public,” the DOJ said in its filing on Wednesday. The filing asks for a response from AT&T by Tuesday, July 31.

The government estimates that approximately 660 pages of trial transcripts remain under seal from the proceeding that resulted in Leon’s 172-page opinion allowing the merger to move forward. The defendants didn’t previously object to the release of trial transcripts, but only, as the DOJ noted, stated “no objection to all bench conferences remaining under seal.”

It was added in the government’s brief that Judge Leon “addressed and resolved several substantive motions and nearly every evidentiary and confidentiality issue at these bench conferences” and that accordingly, “the public record, as it stands, is often unclear on the grounds for objections, the parties’ arguments and the court’s rulings.”

Full Content: Hollywood Reporter

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