PDF | 72 kb
This formal letter of request for information was sent by ClientEarth on behalf of Sandbag in order to ask for access to the database set up by the European Commission bringing together information on individual installations, their NACE code (referring to their economic activity) their emissions and the allowances allocated to them.
In a long informal exchange of messages the Commission had claimed that the information in the data base was confidential. The ClientEarth and Sandbag formal request advanced legal arguments justifying that the information requested should be considered of overriding public interest as it was related to emissions and denying the confidentiality of information that is partially public. On the basis of the formal request, the European Commission not only gave both organisations access to the information requested but it uploaded it in the website acknowledging that such information deserved to be disclosed to the public at large.
Click to read the Commission's response