George Hani discusses an order by the Federal Circuit that helps bring some clarity to the availability of nonparty taxpayer information in tax litigation by establishing firmer guidelines for when otherwise nondisclosable return information should be released by the federal government. Hani said that despite attempts at redaction to minimize disclosure of return information irrelevant to the issue in a judicial proceeding, "taxpayers can often put the pieces together" to get a sense of what competitors are doing. Companies are extremely sensitive to disclosure of section 6103 information because that information "can indicate the technologies used, or even supply sources, that may not be known to other firms within their industry," he said. "I think courts generally recognize the large competition stakes, and so there is a trend toward permitting only narrow discovery from the government in such instances."