October 8, 2018
Tilton Loses Bid To Seal Tax Documents On Appeal
Law360 (October 5, 2018, 9:05 PM EDT) — A New York appeals court has rejected a bid by Lynn Tilton and her company Patriarch Management to keep certain tax and financial information private in their dispute with a German lender.
In a Thursday opinion, the court found a lower court was right in its ruling denying Tilton’s motion to seal certain business tax information in a $45 million dispute with German lender Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale, also known as Nord/LB, because privacy concerns did not outweigh the necessity of the documents to the case at hand.
“Although the disclosures involve sensitive financial information that relates to information contained in tax returns, the court properly found that the privacy interest in such information, unlike the privacy interest in tax returns, is not a sufficient basis for an order sealing that information so that it is not accessible to the public.” the court said.
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In the lawsuit, Nord/LB and an affiliate said money the lenders placed with Tilton’s collateralized debt obligation funds was used to make private equity investments in companies that Tilton charged immense fees to manage.
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Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale is represented by Michael Fay and Chris Sprengle of Berg & Androphy.
The case is Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale et al. v. Lynn Tilton et al., case number 651695/2015, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, First Department.