The State Board of Administration of Florida (SBA), acting on behalf of the Florida Retirement System Trust Fund, and the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) filed a petition on Wednesday, 23 September 2026, in New York County Supreme Court seeking an order compelling The New York Times Company to honor shareholder demands to inspect corporate books and records, according to the petition text opened for this draft, same-day Reuters reporting, and an exclusive account in The Free Press.
Petitioners invoke Section 624 of New York’s Business Corporation Law, New York common law, and Article 4 of the Civil Practice Law and Rules. The petition seeks no damages and does not assert claims against individual directors. It asks the court to enforce inspection rights after the company refused to produce documents. The Florida Retirement System Trust Fund holds 161,375 shares of New York Times Class A stock, the petition states; the fund serves more than 1.2 million public retirees and workers, Reuters reported, citing the SBA’s website for about $235.7 billion of assets under management as of 31 August.
What the shareholders say they want, as the petition and Capitolist summary of the filing describe: board-level materials — committee charters, agendas, reporting structures, and records showing whether editorial-compliance issues reach directors — from 2020 forward, bearing on whether the board monitors compliance with the company’s own published editorial standards, source-verification protocols, corrections controls, and related reputational risks. The narrowed request, per the petition and Fox 13 Tampa Bay’s account of the Attorney General’s announcement, excludes reporters’ notes, unpublished drafts, source identities, editorial deliberations, and attorney work product. Petitioners say they are not asking the judge to review or override editorial decisions.
Timeline in the petition: NCPPR served a demand on 29 May 2026; the company refused on 5 June. SBA served its operative written demand on 10 August. The company refused that demand in full on 21 August, calling it pretextual and invoking the First Amendment, according to the petition and contemporaneous coverage. SBA then narrowed the request. At a 1 September meet-and-confer, company counsel said the company would produce no documents responsive to the narrowed request, the petition states.
The petition’s theory, stated as petitioners’ allegations: the company tells investors in its Form 10-K that brand and reputation are key assets and that a perception of unreliable or biased journalism could hurt the business; the board must therefore take reasonable steps to learn whether internal editorial controls work; petitioners say they found no board-level mechanism for that oversight and cite, among other materials, an unnamed former newsroom employee’s account of raising antisemitism and anti-Israel bias concerns through internal channels between 2019 and a March 2026 departure. Those whistleblower claims are allegations in the petition and in The Free Press exclusive interview; they have not been adjudicated. The petition also cites public corrections, peer-reviewed coverage studies, and an August 2026 Alabama federal jury defamation verdict against the company — again as petitioners’ support for inspection, not as findings by the New York court.
Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander told Reuters: “This lawsuit has no merit and was brought for an improper purpose.” He called it “a transparent attempt to exert agenda-driven pressure against an independent media organization, level false allegations of bias and chill journalism protected by the First Amendment,” and said the company would defend vigorously. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, an SBA trustee, said on X, as quoted by Reuters: “The Times says unreliable journalism is a material risk. We asked if the board oversees its standards, and they refused to produce a single page.”
What to watch without mood: whether New York County Supreme Court grants, narrows, or denies inspection after the summary hearing BCL § 624(d) contemplates; whether any production schedule is ordered; and how the company frames First Amendment objections against the statutory inspection claim. Suit filed is not a ruling on the merits of the board’s oversight or of the paper’s coverage.
Floor: Petition filed 23 Sep 2026, New York County Supreme Court — SBA (Florida Retirement System Trust Fund, 161,375 NYT Class A shares) + NCPPR v. The New York Times Company; BCL § 624 / common-law books-and-records after Aug–Sep refusals; board-level editorial-standards oversight materials sought; no damages; narrowed ask excludes reporter notes/drafts/sources. Times: no merit, improper purpose, First Amendment (Reuters). Primary petition PDF + Reuters 23 Sep + The Free Press exclusive (Sulkin).