Opinion ID: 618770
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Church & Dwight's Remaining Contentions

Text: We can dispose of Church & Dwight's other contentions in short order. First, we reject the Company's contention the district court never described the materials sought in the subpoena and the CID; in fact, the district court described the disputed materials the Commission sought and the Company seeks to redact as information from the documents [Church & Dwight] produce[d] regarding proprietary and confidential information on non-condom products.... FTC v. Church & Dwight Co., 747 F.Supp.2d 3, 8 (D.D.C. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). In any event, the Company does not actually dispute the identity of the materials at issue. Second, Church & Dwight claims the district court's finding of relevance was based upon both a legal and a clear factual error. As for the legal error, the Company contends the district court was satisfied with mere plausibility instead of demanding the reasonable relevance required under Texaco. It bases this claim upon the following statement in the opinion of the district court: [I]t is entirely plausible that information [concerning other products] appearing in the same document with relevant information concerning... condoms would itself be relevant to the investigation. That statement is not inconsistent, however, with the correct legal standard, viz., that the requested materials... be reasonably relevant to the investigation, which appears in the next sentence of the court's opinion, followed by a citation to Invention Submission. As for the factual error, the Company erroneously argues Texaco requires the district court to perform an independent review of the information sought and articulate the reasons underlying a finding of relevancy to the investigation. Again the Company would demand of the district court a more searching probe of the relation between the Commission's inquiry and the information sought than our precedents require or even allow. As we said in Invention Submission, the Commission has no obligation to establish precisely the relevance of the material it seeks in an investigative subpoena by tying that material to a particular theory of violation. See Texaco, 555 F.2d at 877.... [I]n light of the broad deference we afford the investigating agency, it is essentially the respondent's burden to show that the information is irrelevant. Cf. id. at 882.... 965 F.2d at 1090. The present Resolution, as we have explained, contemplates an investigation into Church & Dwight's sales not only of condoms but also of other products. The information the Commission is seeking concerning those other products is obviously relevant to that investigation; [] the district court had no obligation to belabor the obvious.