The public interest in preventing prejudice to commercial interests trumps the public interest in publishing details of recipients of emergency Covid loans, the First Tier Tribunal has ruled. In Spotlight on Corrupton & Anor v The Information Commissioner & The British Business Bank, tribunal judge Sophie Buckley rejected two appeals against the information commissioner's decision not to require the British Business Bank to identify all the businesses that had taken out loans under four government schemes during the pandemic. 

The state-owned bank is contesting data requests by pressure group Spotlight on Corruption and journalist James Pearce on the grounds that revealing the identities of loan recipients could harm their business. It argued that identification that a business was in receipt of a loan would potentially undermine customer or supplier confidence. It would also effectively create a marketing list for anyone wanting to target such entities on the assumption that they needed finance.

Accepting these arguments, the tribunal also agreed that publication of details could expose the companies to fraudsters. 'We conclude that there is a very strong public interest in preventing prejudice to the commercial interests of borrowers, in particular at a time where borrowers under all schemes were in a financially vulnerable position through no fault of their own as a result of restrictions imposed by the government.'

While there is 'an extremely high public interest in transparency and scrutiny of these schemes' the judge found that this was substantially met by existing scrutiny mechanisms. 'The release of all the names at the time of the refusal of the request would not materially add to this public interest.'

 

This article is now closed for comment.