HM Treasury

The complainant submitted a request to HM Treasury (HMT) for information relating to meetings held between Shein and HMT officials/ministers.  HMT initially withheld all of the information held within scope of the request under section 43(2)(prejudice to commercial interests), section 29(1)(a)(prejudice to the UK’s economic interest), section 29(1)(b)(prejudice to the financial interests of the UK) and section 40(2)(third party personal data).
At internal review HMT withdrew section 29(1)(b) but maintained all the other exemptions to the request.  In addition, they applied section 35(1)(d)(operation of any Ministerial office) to some of the information within scope.
During the Commissioner’s investigation, HMT provided the complainant with a revised response to his request, and disclosed the information requested with redactions.  HMT withdrew reliance on section 29(1)(a) and confirmed that they were withholding the redacted information under five exemptions, specifically, sections 27(1)(a)(prejudice to international relations), 35(1)(a)(formulation or development of government policy), section 35(1)(d), section 43(2) and section 40(2).  Some of these exemptions applied to only some of the withheld information.  The Commissioner’s decision is that the withheld information is exempt from disclosure on the basis of sections 27(1)(a), 43(2) and 35(1)(a) and that the public interest favours maintaining each exemption to the parts of the withheld information to which it applies.  However, the Commissioner finds that HMT breached section 17 as they failed to apply the relevant exemptions within 20 working days of the request. 
The Commissioner does not require further steps.