Court orders limited redaction of judgment for reasons of arbitral confidentiality

Bourlakova & Ors v The Estate of Oleg Bourlakov & Ors [2026] EWHC 87 (Ch) (20 January 2026)

In an earlier article, we looked at the Court’s decision to order limited disclosure of confidential arbitral materials due to exceptional circumstances: see Arbitral confidentiality: the exceptions that prove the rule? | Hill Dickinson.

The documentation to be provided related to an arbitration taking place in Moscow involving a foreign third party. The application to the English Court for limited disclosure was heard in private as one of the principal objections to the orders sought was the confidentiality of those Russian arbitral proceedings and conducting the hearing in public would have undermined that confidentiality even if the Court had rejected the application.

Subsequently, there was a further private hearing, at which the Court handed down its Main Judgment. Thereafter, there was another hearing to decide a number of disputes between the parties as to the terms of the order to reflect the Main Judgment.

Both sides before the English Court accepted and highlighted the importance of transparency and open justice in proceedings, and both contended for relatively limited redactions to be made to the Main Judgment. However, the parties disagreed on the redactions to be made.

The case is interesting to all those involved in international arbitration because it highlights the type of tricky issues that can arise when navigating the confidentiality of arbitration proceedings, particularly in cross-border litigation.

The background

The application for limited disclosure concerned documents relating to a Moscow-seated arbitration between one of the defendants in the English proceedings, Edelweiss Investments Inc (Edelweiss) and a foreign third party (who was neither a party to the English proceedings nor was represented before the Court at the original hearing).

As the arbitral proceedings were confidential, the orders sought before the English Court would, prima facie, require Edelweiss to provide documents in breach of that confidentiality. This confidentiality was not a bar to granting the order sought but the confidentiality of the information to be produced was reflected in an undertaking from the main claimants, the Bourlakovas, to keep that information confidential and to use it only for specified purposes.

The concerns of Edelweiss which arose in relation to the publication of the judgment were twofold:

1. Edelweiss could be subject to a penalty on the application of the third party.

2. The publication of details of the arbitration could prejudice Edelweiss's position with the Tribunal in the arbitration.

Both of these concerns were raised at the original hearing and Edelweiss contended that they continued to apply, with the latter concern heightened by the apparent irritation of the Tribunal when it was told that Edelweiss had been ordered to give disclosure of otherwise confidential documents.

The Bourlakovas disagreed that these concerns arose and submitted that, in any event, the latter concern was, by its very nature, limited in time – once an Award was rendered, it would fall away.

The position was complicated by the fact that the information in relation to the arbitral proceedings included in the judgment did not derive from one source. The Bourlakovas were initially provided with some information about the arbitration by an anonymous third party and they referred to at least part of that information at an earlier public hearing in July 2025.

Other parts of the information were provided by Edelweiss in correspondence pursuant to an order made at the public hearing.

Finally, some of the detail about the arbitration was included in the evidence produced by Edelweiss for the hearing.

The Bourlakovas argued that there should not be redaction of the material which had already been deployed at a separate public hearing, not least as the Bourlakovas were not subject to any restriction on the use to which they could put that material. For example, they were free to name the third-party claimant in the arbitration even if the Court redacted his name.

The Court decision

The Court noted that this case did not fit neatly into the categories of redaction considered in the authorities.

The Court concluded that some temporary redaction of the Main Judgment was justified. In the light of its conclusions about the nature of the arbitration – which both parties before the English Court described as ’bogus’ – the interests of justice were in maximising the prospects of Edelweiss being able to defeat the claim.

Not only was it in the interests of both Edelweiss and the Bourlakovas for this to be the outcome, but defeating the claim was also relevant to the effectiveness of the English proceedings more generally as it was the ownership of (or entitlement to) the assets of Edelweiss which were in issue in the arbitration proceedings.

While it was inevitably difficult to assess the impact which publication of the Main Judgment in unredacted form might have, publication of the detail of the arbitration in the Main Judgment could provide the other party to the arbitration with a renewed opportunity to complain about breach of the confidentiality regime which prima facie applied to the arbitration and could damage the credibility of Edelweiss with the Tribunal.

The Court did not agree with the Bourlakovas that the fact that the arbitration was accepted as being ’bogus’ was a factor in favour of publication. While it was a powerful reason why the disclosure was ordered, it was possible that further publicity could impact on Edelweiss's defence of the claim. The interests of both parties and of justice more generally were advanced if that impact could be minimised with carefully considered and temporary departures from open justice.

Furthermore, making the redactions on a temporary basis would address the concerns identified by Edelweiss while also allowing for the Main Judgment to be published in a form which was explicable and comprehensible, and where the principle of open justice was respected.

The Court, therefore, decided that:

1. Limited parts of the Main Judgment that referred to either the detail of the claim being made or to the position taken by Edelweiss should be redacted.

2. The identity of the other party to the arbitration and the headline amount in issue should not be redacted as those were matters that had been referred to in open court at the public hearing. They were not, therefore, significant confidential information.

3. The name of Edelweiss’ Russian lawyers could be redacted as it was irrelevant to understanding the Main Judgment and it was not necessary to identify them while the arbitration was ongoing.

4. Once an award was issued in the arbitration, the unredacted Main Judgment could be published.

The Court also allowed the Bourlakovas to refer to the Main Judgment in unredacted form subject to complying with the confidentiality undertaking in the original order and for the limited purposes set out in the order.

Comment

This case involved allegations of forgery, fabrication and dishonesty. The Court, therefore, decided that the interests of justice were best served by imposing a temporal limit on the redactions.

Not all cases will involve such unusual circumstances. Nonetheless, how to reconcile the principles of open justice and arbitral confidentiality remains generally relevant.

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