Multi-Billion Dollar Corporation Drops Suit Against Inter-American Development Bank, After Court Holds It Can't Sue as "Doe Corporation"
The case helps illustrate why the legal rules surrounding when parties can litigate under pseudonyms are so important.
Here's a paragraph summary from Chief Judge James Boasberg's initial decision denying pseudonymity to the company, in Doe Corp. 1 v. Inter-American Development Bank (D.D.C.):
Plaintiffs are corporate entities who have filed this lawsuit against the Inter-American Development Bank, claiming that the IDB has improperly initiated sanctions proceedings against them. Doe Corporations allege that those proceedings violate both Defendant's governing charter and its contracts with Plaintiffs. Concerned that revealing that they are the subjects of the IDB's sanctions proceedings would result in "reputational harm," "crater new business," and "jeopardize existing projects," Doe Corporations now move to proceed under pseudonyms….
The D.C. Circuit upheld that decision (disclosure: I filed a friend of the court brief arguing that the company indeed shouldn't be able to sue pseudonymously). Yesterday, that decision essentially became final (the D.C. Circuit issued its mandate to the lower court), and then yesterday the company dropped the case:
Pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(i) and 41(a)(1)(B), Plaintiffs Doe Corporation 1, Doe Corporation 2, Doe Corporation 3, and Doe Corporation 4 [which all seem to be affiliates of one company -EV], by and through undersigned counsel, hereby voluntarily dismiss all their claims in this action without prejudice. No answer or motion for summary judgment has been served by Defendant Inter-American Development Bank in this action.
And while it's hard to know for sure why the company did that, it seems likely that it's because of what was said in its argument for pseudonymity: Identifying itself as the plaintiff would damage its future prospects with other business partners.
Now I think that pseudonymity should indeed be unavailable in such cases; here's the Summary of Argument from my brief, which goes into a good deal of detail on the subject.
"The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure create a presumption against pseudonymous litigation." Doe v. Hill, 141 F.4th 291, 293 (D.C. Cir. 2025). And for good reason:
Requiring parties to litigate under their real names serves important values. Accurate party names allow citizens to evaluate the nature of the claims raised and the interests at stake, to assess the real-world aftermath of a suit, and to determine for themselves whether justice was done.
Knowing the identity of parties also makes it easier for citizens to investigate abuses of the judicial process like judicial conflicts of interest and ex parte contacts, and it promotes the appearance of fairness. Secrecy breeds suspicion, and so some may believe that a party's name was masked as a means of suppressing inconvenient facts and that the court was either asleep at the wheel or complicit in the cover up.
Id.(cleaned up) (paragraph break added).
This analysis applies perfectly in this case. A business corporation is suing a multigovernmental organization, the Inter-American Development Bank. Given the nature of the allegations and the law firm hired to litigate the case, the corporation is likely wealthy and important. So is the Bank, which has received billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, and over which the U.S. government exercises 30% voting control.
The corporation is claiming that the Bank has acted improperly, in violation of the Bank's own rules. The Bank has apparently claimed that the corporation has acted improperly. The corporation is now seeking to have the case resolved in federal court, using U.S. taxpayer resources.
Following the normal course of litigation in American courts, where the corporations would sue under their own names, the public would be able to monitor what is happening. Journalists, researchers, activists, and others could find information about the corporation. They could determine whether there had been other controversies involving the corporation in general, or having to do with the Commercial Project Agreement (Compl. ¶ 3, App. 5) in particular.
They could search for any related news stories, any related government documents, or any related court filings in other cases. They could interview the corporation's past and current employees, or employees of the corporation's past and current business partners. They could do all the research that normal media, academic, and activist commentary would normally include.
Yet Doe Corporations want this case litigated in secret. Right now, they wants to conceal their own names. And if they prevail on that, then they will likely also need to seal or redact a massive amount of information in future filings that would disclose their identities. Eugene Volokh, The Law of Pseudonymous Litigation, 73 Hastings L.J. 1353, 1372-75 (2022) (discussing how "maintaining pseudonymity may require redacting or sealing documents filed in court").
As this Court predicted in Hill, concealing "the identity of parties" would make it harder "for citizens to investigate" whether the judicial process was properly proceeding. It would "promote[] the appearance of [un]fairness." "Secrecy" would "breed[] suspicion, and so some may believe that a party's name was masked as a means of suppressing inconvenient facts and that the court was either asleep at the wheel or complicit in the cover up." Hill, 141 F.4th at 293 (cleaned up).
To be sure, anyone can understand why Doe Corporations would want to litigate this case pseudonymously: Publicly discussing their allegations against the Bank—which of course relate to the Bank's allegations against them—would cause them reputational harm. But that is true in a vast range of legal disputes. Nearly every dispute involves reputation-damaging allegations against a defendant, and very many involve reputation-damaging allegations against a plaintiff.
This is why many federal appellate courts have concluded that avoiding the risk of reputational, professional, and economic harm is not an adequate basis for pseudonymity (though the risk of physical and mental harm might be). See infra pp. 10-11. Ruling otherwise would risk reversing the presumption of openness that this Court has repeatedly reaffirmed….
But in any event, this case illustrates just why we should care about the law of pseudonymous litigation. Whatever you think is the right approach in such matters, a lot turns on what the rule is. And there's a good deal of downside, I think, to just how vague and conflicted the law in this area is, even just within the federal courts.