The case concerned the refusal by the Single Resolution Board (SRB) to give full public access to tender documentation and audit reports. In refusing access to parts of the documents, the SRB relied on various exceptions under the EU legislation on public access to documents.

Following an inspection of the documents at issue and an assessment of the SRB’s additional explanations, the Ombudsman considered the SRB’s decision to refuse public access to parts of the documents at issue to be justified.

The Ombudsman thus closed the inquiry finding no maladministration.

The case concerned a request for public access to documents held by the European Banking Authority (EBA) concerning alleged greenwashing cases in the financial sector. The EBA identified two documents as falling within the scope of the request and refused access to one of them. In refusing access, the EBA argued that disclosure of that document would undermine the protection of commercial interests, the protection of the purpose of inspections, investigations and audits and the protection of an ongoing decision-making process.

The Ombudsman inquiry team inspected the document at issue and related documents and met with EBA representatives. Based on the inspection and the additional explanations provided during the meeting, the Ombudsman found the EBA’s decision to refuse public access to the document in question to be reasonable.

The Ombudsman closed the inquiry finding that there was no maladministration by the EBA.

The case concerned a request for public access to ‘internal documents’ and ‘correspondence with Spain’ related to a complaint concerning an infringement of EU law that the complainant had previously submitted to the European Commission. The Commission replied that it does not possess any documents matching the description in the complainant’s access request and, therefore, it was not in a position to satisfy the request. The Commission referred, however, to certain internal documents, which were not registered in its document management system, given that they did not fulfil the applicable registration criteria. The Commission informed the complainant that it considered these documents not to be in its possession.

The Ombudsman inspected the internal documents referred to by the Commission and considered these to constitute ‘documents’ under the EU legislation on public access to documents (Regulation 1049/2001).

In that regard, the Ombudsman took the view that, for a document to fall under the scope of Regulation 1049/2001, it is not decisive whether it has been registered in the institution’s document management system. While it is reasonable for the Commission to start its search for documents in its document management system, if individuals submit targeted public access requests for specific documents, the Commission should search for such documents outside its document management system. If the Commission subsequently locates the requested documents, it should assess them for disclosure under Regulation 1049/2001, regardless of whether they fulfil the applicable registration criteria.

In this case, the Commission located the requested documents. Therefore, the Commission should have assessed them for disclosure. The fact that the Commission did not do so constitutes maladministration.

While the Ombudsman thus disagreed with how the Commission handled the request, she considered that pursuing the inquiry with a recommendation to assess the email exchanges under Regulation 1049/2001 would not serve a useful purpose. This is because the Ombudsman has consistently held that the Commission’s practice of linking the registration of documents with their identification and processing under Regulation 1049/2001 is problematic, including in her recommendation in case 1316/2023/MIG. The Ombudsman therefore closed the case with a finding of maladministration.