A federal judge has set a Friday deadline for parties to file an agreed-upon redacted version of the opinion for her ruling blocking the merger of nuclear waste management providers Waste Control Specialists and EnergySolutions.
Judge Sue Robinson, of U.S. District Court for Delaware, on June 21 found in favor of the Justice Department in its antitrust lawsuit against Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions’ $367 million buyout of its Dallas-based rival. Her opinion has not been released, leaving Robinson’s reasoning yet unknown to the public.
That should change in a matter of days, as the redacted opinion would be posted to the court docket upon being filed, Robinson’s office said Friday.
Just two days after Robinson’s order, WCS parent company Valhi said it would not appeal the ruling and was walking away from the merger.
The parties to the lawsuit – the U.S. government; EnergySolutions and its parent company, Rockwell Holdco; and Waste Control Specialists and its holding company, Andrews County Holdings – last month filed a joint response to the judge’s redactions order. All agreed to redact the section of the opinion that was blacked out in a document designated “Exhibit A” – the public version of which is a document in which the text has been entirely withheld.
The companies requested additional redactions, with Waste Control Specialists saying release of sensitive information in Robinson’s opinion could harm the company competitively, including in possible negotiations with a new buyer. The government argued against the additional redactions on the basis of “presumption of openness in federal court proceedings.”
In a July 6 order, Robinson ruled against at least some of the additional redactions requested by the defendants “because most of those redacted portions were discussed in open court and many are central to the court’s rationale for its decision.”
