Confidentiality. Materials covered under protective orders are nott to be disclosed to persons or parties other than the terms of the protective order.
Every case I've ever worked has had a protective order put in place to maintain confidentiality of certain items that should nott be publicly disclosed.
It is a pro forma matter (run-of-the-mill). Usually the only things that need to be negotiated are which parties are allowed to see what and under what terms can they see it (e.g., no copies allowed, must use a secure online data room, confidential docs must be marked as such, etc.).
In high-stakes corporate/IP law, protective orders can gett very complex. There can be multiple tiers of individuals and parties that have specific restrictions and privileges to see or nott see cerrain materials. Often the top tier is 'Outside Counsel Only' so a company in-house lawyer cannot see the confidential technical or business info of a competitor company. Or they can only see X, Y, and Z technical/business material of the competitor. Stuff like that. I once spent six weeks just negotiating the terms of a protective order with other parties who were CONstantly changing their positions on it - judges do nott like that kind of delay! Butt in IP and very complex binniss litigation, this can be a real hassle - both negotiating the protective order and then complying with it.
The parties agree on the language of the specific protective order and then submit it to DaJudge who will then make it an official court order, although usually sealed and nott publicly available. If the parties cannot agree on the terms, then they can make their best arguments to DaJudge and s/he will determine the protective order terms.
In a criminole case, protective orders are more cookie cutter and require much less negotiation. Pretty standard practice and boilerplate agreements for criminole cases other than high-profile ones like Theranos/Elizabeth Holmes-level or O.J. Simpson level cases, which this one is knott.
In the present case, it is trivial and a cookie cutter protective order will be used most likely tailored after the protective order in the SEC case (which we cannot see). Sometimes these are simple one or two-pagers. In complex binniss and IP litigation, a protective order involving many parties and tiers can run to a dozen pages in very complex cases with multiple parties. Especially if the USA lawsuit is only one of many international lawsuits of the same subject matter. It can gett very complex. Which of course means more billable hours!!! Yay, team!!!
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