Information Regarding Public Expenditures
Several courts and information commission/ers have ruled that the high public interest in how public funds are spent outweighs business interests in commercial confidences. Thus, although some categories of proprietary commercial information should usually be kept confidential, taxpaying citizens and businesses generally should be entitled to obtain information about public expenditures, government contracts, and other transactions and relationships between the government and private business entities. Several cases are summarized – from Albania, Ireland, Mexico, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and the United States – in the section on Exceptions: Commercial Secrets: Information Regarding Public Expenditures.
