Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Central Government): ICO 9 Jan 2018

The complainant has requested a copy of a letter sent to the CEO of Nissan from the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) originally withheld the letter under sections 22(1) (information intended for future publication) and 43(2) (prejudice to commercial interests) of the FOIA and latterly applied section 29(1) (a) (prejudice the economic interests of the United Kingdom or of any part of the United Kingdom) during the Commissioner’s investigation. The Commissioner’s decision is that BEIS correctly withheld the letter under section 22(1) of the Act and that at the time of the request the public interest balance favoured maintaining the exemption. She does not therefore require BEIS to take any steps as a result of this notice. However, the Commissioner has found that BEIS breached section 10(1) of the FOIA by failing to provide a substantive response to the request within 20 working days.
FOI 22: Not upheld

Citations:

[2018] UKICO FS50662630

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Information

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.617346