A lovely sea-going parcel tanker.
Parcel tanker shipping giant Stolt-Nielsen pitched a fit when the Antitrust Division in the U.S. Department of Justice revoked — or tried to revoke — an amnesty agreement between them. Under the Division’s corporate leniency program, the first-in bona fide seeker of amnesy gets, well, leniency; and Stolt-Nielsen still wanted it.
Revocation loosed litigation. Then Stolt-Nielsen asked, under the Freedom of Information Act, for a copy of all of the 100 or so amnesty agreements that the Antitrust Division had entered into since the program started in 1993. When the Division balked, claiming exemptions, more litigation ensued. The district court bought all of the government’s arguments and told Stolt-Nielsen to suck eggs.
The D.C. Circuit reversed, finding only two exemptions arguably applicable. Both related to revealing confidential and identifying information from and regarding amnesty recipients. The court said the Antitrust Division needn’t turn over documents that would breach confidence with program participants but rejected the government’s argument (and the district court’s ruling) that redacting the agreements wouldn’t solve the problem. The court remanded to the district court for determination of whether redactions would make non-secret portions "reasonably segregable" from the secret stuff. Stolt-Nielsen Transportation Group, Ltd. v. United States, No. 07-5191 (D.C. Cir. July 25, 2008).
Blawgletter has a different question. What relevance do amnesty agreements with other companies have to the question of whether Stolt-Nielsen violated its amnesty agreement? Will Stolt-Nielsen try to show that the Division let violations of other agreements with different companies slide but for no good reason got real huffy with a Hollandic parcel tanker shipper? Selective persecution?
By the way, Stolt-Nielsen won the fight over revocation of the amnesty agreement. So far.
