In its July 2014 decision in Matter of Verizon N.Y. Inc. v. New York State Public Service Commission, the New York Supreme Court ruled against releasing a supplier’s trade secret information in response to a public access request made pursuant to the state Freedom of Information Law. The court noted that the burden was with the supplier to establish that the information in the possession of the government institution should not be disclosed. In this case the court found that the supplier met that burden by establishing that the information in question fell under the statutory exemption for trade secret pricing information. The court concluded that the government institution’s decision not to disclose the information in question was “rational and neither arbitrary and capricious, nor an abuse of discretion” and ruled in favor of protecting that information from the public access request.
