Source: http://foiaproject.org/case_detail/?title=on&style=foia&case_id=24505
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 10:05:13+00:00

Document:
Case Description Intellectual Property Watch requested records concerning the United States' position on intellectual property rights during the negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Intellectual Property Watch also requested expedited processing and a fee waiver. After the Trade Representative asked the organization to narrow its request, it submitted an amended request. After more than a year, the agency indicated it would not search for records concerning the agreement because they were protected by Exemption 1 (national security) and Exemption 5 (deliberative process privilege). As to emails between the Trade Representative and members of Industry Trade Advisory Committees, the agency located 298 responsive records and disclosed 77 of them. The Trade Representative withheld personally identifying information under Exemption 6 (invasion of privacy) and also withheld information under Exemption 4 (confidential business information). Intellectual Property Watch submitted an administrative appeal, but filed suit after the statutory time limit for responding had expired.
FOIA Project Annotation: A federal court in New York has ruled that the U.S. Trade Representative properly withheld records concerning the U.S. negotiating position during the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement recently negotiated between 11 Asia-Pacific countries and the United States from Intellectual Property Watch under Exemption 1 (national security) and Exemption 3 (other statutes), but that the agency has not supported its claims under Exemption 4 (confidential business information) and Exemption 5 (deliberative process privilege). After rejecting most of Intellectual Property Watch's request, IPW agreed to narrow its request to the negotiating positions for the United States. Most of those records were either withheld or redacted under Exemption 1 and Exemption 3, citing the Trade Act of 1974. The negotiating countries agreed to abide by a New Zealand-originated confidentiality agreement that prohibited disclosure of negotiation-related materials until an agreement was reached without the permission of all the countries. Judge Edgardo Ramos explained that "such a requirement explicitly contemplates a foreign nation's objecting to the U.S.'s unilaterally release of U.S. proposals; the agreement takes aim at precisely this kind of negotiating in public. . .While violation of a confidentiality agreement does not per se satisfy the government's burden under Exemption 1, the existence of a specific confidentiality agreement in the context of specific negotiations is undoubtedly relevant." Ramos found the agency had made a sufficient case for its conclusion that disclosure of the records could harm national security. He noted that "it is both logical and plausible that unilateral disclosure of Draft Chapters, in explicit violation of the very first term of the TPP confidentiality agreement, would harm foreign relations, especially prior to consummation of the final agreement. . .[D]isclosure in this case might establish a precedent that all draft text in all future trade negotiations involving the U.S. would be subject to FOIA disclosure. Absent any such limiting principle, formal confidentiality agreements would be rendered futile, and the Court accepts as reasonable the government's argument that such agreements are critical preconditions to successful multilateral trade negotiations." IPW argued that 19 U.S.C. § 2155(g) of the Trade Act did not qualify as an Exemption 3 statute because its amended language did not prohibit public disclosure. But Ramos noted the provisions established "particular criteria for withholding" or referred "to particular types of matters to be withheld" as required under Exemption 3. Ramos observed that "it is commonsense that [the provisions]. . .instruct the agency to withhold confidential information and advice from the public, and permitting only limited disclosure to certain key Executive and Congressional officials involved in trade negotiations. Although these provisions do not explicitly direct USTR to withhold confidential matters from the public, such a directive is nonetheless the most reasonable reading and is consistent with the rest of the statute and its legislative history." The agency claimed that its ability to obtain confidential business information in the future would be impaired if certain confidential business information was disclosed. Ramos agreed with IPW that the agency had not shown that the records were treated as confidential. As a result, he ordered the agency to provide further support for its Exemption 4 claims, as wells as its § 2155(g) Exemption 3 claims pertaining the alleged confidential business information. The agency argued that some records qualified for protection under Exemption 5. But Ramos noted that the agency's claims were contrary to the Supreme Court's holding in Klamath because the parties clearly had adverse interests. Rejecting the agency's argument that the records fell within the consultant corollary, Ramos pointed out that "the upshot is that USTR asks this Court to apply an expansive interpretation of the consultant corollary that the U.S. Supreme Court has described as beyond 'typical' and the Second Circuit has never expressly adopted."
FOIA Project Annotation: A federal court in New York has declined to reconsider its previous decision finding that the United States' original negotiating positions for the Trans Pacific Partnership treaty were confidential. Intellectual Property Watch argued that now the negotiations were complete disclosure would not impair the government's ability to get information from third parties in the future. Judge Edgardo Ramos disagreed, finding that Section 2155(g) of the Trade Act of 1974 protected "information or advice 'submitted in confidence'" and "to determine whether a document is properly withheld by asking whether the information or advice contained therein was submitted with the expectation that it would be treated confidentially," a test drawn from the Supreme Court's decision in Dept of Justice v. Landano, 508 U.S. 165 (1993), which dealt with assurances of confidentiality under Exemption 7(D) (confidential sources). The U.S. Trade Representative told Ramos that the records were still protected by Exemption 1 (national security) because disclosure of negotiating positions could still cause harm to foreign relations. Intellectual Property Watch argued disclosure would not hamper future negotiations now that the full text of the agreement had been released. Ramos pointed out, however, that "the mere fact that the final agreement may constrain future U.S. positions does not preclude the possibility that disclosure of earlier positions may do so as well. To the contrary, USTR makes sufficiently logical representations that future trade negotiations may become more difficult if other countries know that all of the U.S.'s interim positions and proposals made during future negotiations will be disclosed to the public once a final agreement is locked in." Ramos rejected IPW's claim that disclosure of the final agreement waived Exemption 1. Instead, Ramos noted that "release of the final TPP agreement discloses only the fact that the final text was eventually agreed to by all twelve countries; it does not disclose which country or countries proposed which provisions, when those proposals were made, and evolving iterations of each proposal throughout the negotiations."
FOIA Project Annotation: A federal court in New York has ruled that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative properly withheld information pertaining to the U.S. position on the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations under Exemption 3 (other statutes) and Exemption 4 (confidential business information). In an earlier ruling in a case brought by Intellectual Property Watch, Judge Edgardo Ramos had found that both exemptions applied, although he had rejected the agency's Exemption 5 (privileges) claims. In his second ruling, Ramos decided that the definition of the term "in confidence" contained in § 2155(g) of the Trade Act should be assessed using the explicit/implicit test for confidentiality under Exemption 7(D) (confidential sources) articulated by the Supreme Court in Dept of Justice v. Landano, 508 U.S. 165 (1993) and had asked the parties to brief that issue. Ramos rejected the agency's claim that § 2155(g)(3) covered anything the USTR claimed was confidential, noting instead that withheld communications "must fall into one of the categories identified by the [industry trade advisory committee manual]: they must be 'security-classified information' or 'trade-sensitive information.'" Although the agency had failed to identify withheld portions with specificity, Ramos found they qualified as confidential. Ramos then concluded that affidavits from industry officials were sufficient to show that participants in the negotiations considered their information confidential. He observed that "after all, these interested parties were disclosing industry-sensitive information with the potential to negatively affect their organizations if disclosed publicly. Indeed, these private-sector leaders aver that they would be significantly less likely to engage in such government consultation if their views were not kept confidential."

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