On January 11, the United States Supreme Court announced it accepted the Food Marketing Institute’s cert petition to review the Eighth Circuit’s decision in Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media, representing the latest development toward resolving a conundrum we have described before—how to protect confidential and trade secret information provided to the government in light of public disclosure laws.
This will be an important case for government contractors—and anyone else providing information to the federal government—to watch. If the Supreme Court agrees with the Eighth Circuit’s standard, it will become harder to prevent disclosure of confidential information to competitors when dealing with the federal government.