The complainant was concerned with how the European Parliament dealt with a request for public access to the 'four-column table' document, outlining the positions of the different institutions in the 'trilogue' negotiations on the 'Digital Markets Act'. In particular, the complainant was concerned by the delay in taking a final (confirmatory) decision on the request, which occurred only after the negotiations had concluded. In the complainant's view, this meant the document could not be used to follow or engage in advocacy work while the negotiations were ongoing.

During the Ombudsman’s inquiry, it emerged that the Parliament had not initially identified the relevant document due to an administrative error. It then incurred further delay in analysing the document and consulting with the other institutions that co-authored the document.

The Ombudsman found that this delay constituted maladministration and stressed that Parliament must ensure the time taken for internal and external consultations allows it to respect statutory time limits. However, given that the Parliament had granted public access to the document in the meantime, she took the view that making a recommendation at this stage would serve no useful purpose.