A High Court judge has overturned the information commissioner’s decision requiring University College Cork to disclose to RTÉ certain information about a €100 million loan agreement between the college and the European Investment Bank (EIB). The commissioner also made a material error in interpreting the “competitive prejudice” exemption from disclosure set out in the Act, the judge held. A striking feature of this case was “how little” information UCC was seeking to exempt from disclosure, he said. The finance contract ran for 50 typed pages and the information UCC wished not to disclose, including the interest rate, ran to about 20 lines. Because the full unredacted version of the loan agreement was made available to the court for the purpose of the appeal, he had been able to compare and contrast that with the redacted version, he said.

Source: The Irish Times April 03, 2019 20:26 UTC