The case concerned a request for public access to exchanges the European Commission had with Thorn, which describes itself as a non-governmental organisation, and has developed and sells tools for detecting child sexual abuse material. The exchanges took place while the Commission was drafting a proposal for an EU regulation on preventing and combatting child sexual abuse. The Commission identified 20 documents as falling under the request but gave full access to only five of these. In refusing access to (parts of) the remaining documents, the Commission invoked exceptions under the EU legislation on public access to documents, arguing that disclosure could undermine personal data, the commercial interests of the organisation concerned and public security. The complainant contested the decision concerning four of the documents that fell under the exception for the protection of commercial interests.

The Ombudsman inspected the documents at issue and found that it was unreasonable of the Commission to refuse to disclose much of the information in the documents. The Commission also did not seem to have considered all elements that are relevant for assessing whether there is an overriding public interest in disclosing the documents. In light of this, the Ombudsman found that the Commission’s refusal of access constituted maladministration. She recommended that the Commission reconsider its decision with a view to giving significantly increased, if not full, public access to the documents at issue.

Even though the complainant was subsequently granted access to the documents by national authorities, the Commission refused to accept the Ombudsman's recommendation. The Ombudsman thus closed her inquiry, confirming her finding of maladministration.