“A nonprofit consumer advocate on Thursday challenged extensive redactions and sealed filings in MetLife Inc.’s lawsuit in Washington federal court over the company’s designation by financial regulators as “too big to fail.”

“The nonpartisan Better Markets Inc., an advocate for transparency in the financial industry, filed court papers seeking to intervene in MetLife’s suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. MetLife, represented by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, sued the Financial Stability Oversight Council in January, arguing that regulators erred in determining that the insurance company poses a risk to the nation’s financial stability and should be subject to heightened supervision.

“Numerous court filings are sealed or redacted in the case, which is pending before U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer. The Financial Stability Oversight Council, or FSOC, asked Collyer in May to the dismiss the suit.

Better Markets, represented by an in-house team, said MetLife’s lawyers and the Justice Department attorneys for the oversight panel “have created a litigation record largely shrouded in secrecy.” The organization said the court, not the lawyers in the case, should make an independent determination about what information, if anything, should be confidential.”

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Read the full National Law Journal article by C. Ryan Barber here.