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The University of California filed a motion in U.S. District Court last week that would prevent documents relating to the UC-led lawsuit against Enron from being sealed.

The UC, which was chosen to lead the class action suit against Enron and several other defendants last April, lost $145 million after a sell-off of Enron stocks last November in the wake of allegations that Enron used accounting tricks to hide debts and defraud stockholders.

A UC press release estimates total losses of all plaintiffs in the class action suit exceed $25 billion.

A related motion, filed jointly with some of the defendants, would set rules determining where over 25 million Enron documents will be stored and who will have access to them.

The motions were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District Court of Texas in Houston.

The case is still in its early stages, and has not yet even entered the discovery phase, in which both sides seek from each other information they will use for their arguments.

In a legal memorandum, the UC argued that the documents must remain open since American law “presupposes public scrutiny” and that it is in the public interest to disclose any illegal actions committed by a publicly traded corporation.

Additionally, disclosure would benefit class members absent from court proceedings.

“The members of the class we represent have a particular interest in monitoring and evaluating the prosecution of this case .... They cannot do so if they do not have access to the facts,” said UC general counsel James Holst in a statement.

Attorneys for Enron and several co-defendants, including Arthur Anderson, did not return phone calls to their offices made on Friday and Monday.

Robert Stern, attorney for former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling, John Spiegal, attorney for Kirkland & Ellis, and William Martson Jr., attorney for Tonkon Torp LLP, the latter two both being law firms, all declined to comment whether any of the defendants would file any response to the university’s open access motion.

If the motions are approved, they would not allow members of the press or general public direct access to Enron documents though attorneys would be allowed to reveal information to the public or during court proceedings.

The class action suit against Enron asks for a $1.1 billion refund of losses associated with alleged insider trading plus compensatory damages.

Though the university lost millions, UC officials have repeatedly said the pension plan recipients will not be hurt significantly.

The total loss for all UC portfolios from Enron’s collapse, $145 million, is just 0.3 percent of the university’s total investment funds, according to the UC Office of the President.

Last August, a tentative $40 million settlement was reached with Arthur Anderson, Enron’s former auditing firm.

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