Lyft, Inc. v. Pa. Public Utility Commission, No. 843 C.D. 2015 (Filed July 16, 2015)

Court denies transportation company’s request to designate aggregate trip data as a trade secret.

This dispute began when administrative law judges, who were reviewing Lyft’s applications to operate in Pennsylvania, ordered the company to provide trip data from a six-month period, beginning at the initiation of its service in Pennsylvania and the close of an investigate proceeding. The Pennsylvania Appeals Court upheld an order to unseal the number of trips provided by Lyft before it received the authority to operate, saying that the data cannot be protected from public disclosure because it does not meet the relevant standard for proprietary status. The court found that Lyft could not overcome the fact that the Public Utility Commission had its own regulations, including one to determine proprietary status, which it correctly applied when it rejected the ride-hailing company’s request for a protective order and found that the disclosure of the trip data would not cause competitive harm. The Public Utility Commission concluded that the public had a right to know about the extent of Lyft’s noncompliance over various periods.

 

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