CAFC Amends Mediation Guidelines on Confidentiality, Vacaturs of District Court Rulings
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit adopted changes to its Appellate Mediation Program Guidelines regarding: (1) confidentiality; and (2) settlements that include terms concerning vacatur of a district court ruling. Changes are as follows:
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Confidentiality. CAFC amended the Guidelines’ prohibition on complying with subpoenas or other requests for information about mediated cases to add an exception for compliance in response to a final court order requiring such disclosure. The amended sentence now reads (new text underlined): “All mediators must protect the confidentiality of the substance of all proceedings and are prohibited from complying with subpoenas or other requests for information about mediated cases except in response to a final court order requiring such a disclosure.”
The first sentence of the following paragraph is also revised to remove part of a phrase. The amended sentence now reads (deleted text struck through): “The substance of mediation is confidential and may not be disclosed by the mediator or any participants.”
Conclusion of mediation and vacaturs of district court rulings. The following text is added to the section on “The Conclusion of Mediation”:
“Note: The following notice must be included in the text (not as a footnote) in any motion in the District Court for an indicative ruling:
“As a result of a mediation conducted pursuant to the Mediation Program of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a settlement of this case was reached which includes a term concerning vacatur of one or more rulings of the District Court. Pursuant to Rule 12.1 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, this motion seeks an indicative ruling that the District Court will so vacate if the case is remanded by the Federal Circuit for such purpose. Neither the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit nor its Mediation Program takes a position of whether the motion for vacatur should be granted.
“In addition to the requirement that the above notice be included in any motion in the District Court for an indicative ruling, any remand order by the Federal Circuit will include the following statement:
In remanding this case to the District Court to consider the motion for vacatur, the Federal Circuit takes no position as to whether the District Court should grant the motion for vacatur.”