EA-2023-0405 - [2024] UKFTT 00700 (GRC)

The Commissioner erred in focusing on the type or category of information (being correspondence between UK and US officials) and did not sufficiently particularise the information said to give rise to the prejudice, and in so doing, erred in concluding that the first criterion of the three-limb test was satisfied.

In conducting the public interest balancing exercise, the Commissioner appeared to give weight to the public interest in maintaining international relations with “other states, especially those which value the UK’s trust and discretion” which is too wide and overly vague, and in any event, the wrong test to be applied. The Commissioner erred in not focusing on the claimed public interest in maintaining the exemption as it applied to international relations between the UK and the USA and balancing that against the public interest in disclosure. Accordingly, the Commissioner erred in his assessment of the public interest balancing exercise.