> judge is saying because the bids were seals losing bidders had no clue what their correct bid is and some are likely to have bid less than they would have in open bidding. Who is right I don't know.

Sealed-bid auctions are incredibly common across markets [1]. Real estate. Corporate mergers.

Note, too, that an English auction is revenue equivalent to a second-price sealed-bid auction [2], and here we had a first-price sealed-bid auction with two bidders.

There may be valid reasons to challenge this auction. Sealed bids is absolutely, definitively not one.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-price_sealed-bid_aucti...

[2] https://www.sfu.ca/~idudnyk/Auctions_Part2_Revenue_Equivalen...