Index labs comminication

The request was partially successful.

Dear Gambling Commission,

Please provide all communications with the company Index Labs Limited (in liquidation) and its directors between the dates of 1st July 2021 and the 28 Sep 2021.

If the requested information exceeds the allocated time restrictions or costs stated in the FOIA, you may reduce the period to between 2nd Aug 2021 and 28 Sep 2021.

Index Labs Limited was the parent company of Betindex, subject to an independent review, however the review was limited in that it only reviewed up to the point of administrators taking over. On 28 Sep 2021 the Gambling commission published on it's websites it's sanctions against Betindex.

All names redacted please

Yours faithfully,

Chris inman

Freedom of Information, Gambling Commission

Dear Sir

Thank you for your request for information which we are processing as a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

We aim to deal with all requests promptly and in any event, no later than 20 working days in line with the statutory requirement. In this case 25/11/2022

For information on how we process your personal information please see our freedom of information request specific privacy notice on the Gambling Commission website

If you have any queries about this email, please contact us.

Kind regards

Freedom of Information Team
Gambling Commission
Victoria Square House
Victoria Square
Birmingham B2 4BP

This email and any files transmitted with it are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please return it to the address it came from indicating that you are not the intended recipient and delete it from your system. Do not copy, distribute or take action based on this email. Freedom of Information requests can be submitted either by email ([email address]) or by writing to: FOI request Gambling Commission Victoria Square House Victoria Square Birmingham B2 4BP Please clearly state that your request is under the Freedom of Information Act.

Freedom of Information, Gambling Commission

5 Attachments

Dear Sir

Thank you for your request which has been processed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

In your email you have requested all communications with the company Index Labs Limited (in liquidation) and its directors between the dates of 1 July 2021 and the 28 September 2021.

In order to retrieve information falling within the scope of your request we have performed a search across the Gambling Commission email system for "Index Labs" and applied the date range 01/07/2021 to 28/09/2021, as you have specified.

Following this search, I can confirm that information falling within the scope of your request is held by the Gambling Commission.

As part its investigations, the Commission will enter dialogue with the operator and relevant third parties; information collected during this process is used for ascertaining if any breaches of the Commission’s Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP) or of the Act have occurred.

It is in the interests of all parties that matters of concern to the Commission can be discussed openly and frankly. Providing this information would reveal details about how the Commission conducts its investigatory work and revealing this information could seriously impact on the Commission’s ability to fulfil its statutory functions.

We expect licensees to work with us in an open and cooperative way and to inform us of anything we might need to be aware of in order to regulate effectively. We encourage operators to be as thorough and as detailed as possible when communicating with us.

Given the nature of the information contained within this correspondence and consequently the impact to the regulatory work of the Commission in releasing those emails, we are of the view that some of the information you have requested is exempt under section 31 of the FOIA

The FOIA provides that information held by a public authority is exempt if its disclosure would or would be likely to prejudice a public authority in the exercising of its functions for any purposes specified in subsection 2 (a) – (d).

Section 31(1) of FOIA provides that Information which is not exempt information by virtue of section 30 is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice -
(g) the exercise by any public authority of its functions for any of the purposes specified in subsection (2)
(2) The purposes referred to in subsection (1)(g) to (i) are -
(a) the purpose of ascertaining whether any person has failed to comply with the law,
(b) the purpose of ascertaining whether any person is responsible for any conduct which is improper,
(c) the purpose of ascertaining whether circumstances which would justify regulatory action in pursuance of any enactment exist or may arise,
(d) the purpose of ascertaining a person’s fitness or competence in relation to the management of bodies corporate or in relation to any profession or other activity which he is, or seeks to become, authorised to carry on

The Public Interest Test
Having acknowledged that the requested information is exempt under section 31 it is necessary that I consider a public interest test to identify whether there is a wider public interest in disclosing this information as opposed to maintaining the exemption.

Please note that the ICO can only determine the balance of public interest on a case-by-case basis. Every request where information is exempt from disclosure (other than those where the exemption is absolute) must have a public interest test carried out that is specific to the individual request. The fact that the ICO may (or may not) have determined that the public interest lies in disclosure for a previous request relating to Index Labs, has no automatic bearing or influence on subsequent requests received relating to Index Labs.

Public interest arguments in favour of disclosure
• There is a legitimate public interest in promoting the accountability and transparency of public authorities
• Public disclosure of this information may also, demonstrate our proactive work in this area,
• Further to this, increasing confidence in the Commission as a regulator and its ability to uphold our regulatory responsibility.
• Increased transparency by operators would promote consumer confidence and help them make informed choices.
• There is considerable public interest in general relating to the collapse of Bet Index and parties associated with it, such as Index Labs.

Public interest arguments in favour of maintaining the exemption
• Providing information which makes specific individuals or events identifiable may deter stakeholders or other sources of information from sharing important information with us or other law enforcement agencies.
• We use evidence from a range of places to build cases against gambling businesses. Information provided to us helps inform our work to raise gambling industry standards and make gambling fairer and safer.
• Disclosing detailed information is likely to impact on the openness of operators which will in turn impact on the ability of the Commission to effectively regulate.
• Disclosure of the requested information may prejudice the outcome of future investigations by the Commission, or another body by exposing investigative techniques and practices to the detriment of the public interest.

Weighing the Balance of public interest arguments

It is our view that the S31 – Law Enforcement exemption is engaged, however, due to the nature of the collapse of Bet Index and its relationship with Index Labs/Fame Ventures and the number of people who have been impacted by its closure, the public interest test, although finely balanced, is found to be in favour of disclosure for some of the information you have requested and outweighs the application of the exemption in this specific request.

However, having considered the above points, the Commission is also of the view that the balance of the public interest lies with maintaining the exemption, in some instances.

The Commission acknowledges that there is a public interest in promoting the accountability and transparency of public authorities and the importance of having sufficient information in the public domain to support consumers with their choice of operator.

However, disclosure of the exempt information would be damaging to the Commission as a regulatory body which ultimately serves to protect the wider public interest. There is an overwhelming importance that operators continue to share detailed information with us, in order for us to continually raise standards and support consumers. Disclosure of this information would be of detriment to that work. On balance, in a small number of instances, the public interest is in favour of engaging the S31(2)(a)(b)(c)(d) exemption when considering the impact upon the Commission’s ability to perform its regulatory functions

Please see attached information held by the Gambling Commission which we are able to provide falling within the scope of your request.

We have redacted from this, information relating to identifiable individuals that would constitute personal data.

The Data Protection Act 2018 requires personal data to be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject. It is the view of the Commission that disclosing the personal information within the attached document would constitute the disclosure of personal data and would contravene this principle.

This information is therefore exempt under section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000

Review of the decision

If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your Freedom of Information request you are entitled to an internal review of our decision. You should write to FOI Team, Gambling Commission, 4th floor, Victoria Square House, Victoria Square, Birmingham, B2 4BP or by reply to this email.

Please note, internal review requests should be made within 40 working days of the initial response. Requests made outside this timeframe will not be processed.

If you are not content with the outcome of our review, you may then apply directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have already exhausted the review procedure provided by the Gambling Commission.

The ICO can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Information Management Team
Gambling Commission
Victoria Square House
Victoria Square
Birmingham B2 4BP

This email and any files transmitted with it are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please return it to the address it came from indicating that you are not the intended recipient and delete it from your system. Do not copy, distribute or take action based on this email. Freedom of Information requests can be submitted either by email ([email address]) or by writing to: FOI request Gambling Commission Victoria Square House Victoria Square Birmingham B2 4BP Please clearly state that your request is under the Freedom of Information Act.

Dear Gambling Commission,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I'm not sure requesting an internal review is appropriate as I just need some clarity on my initial request. However, if an internal review is the best option, then so be it. This relates to Gambling Commission's handling of my FOI request 'Index labs comminication'.

I welcome the recognition that the public interest is high in this and the release of some of the information, however I'm not sure if the attachments related to the emails ('please find attached') has been refused on the grounds of not meeting the public interest test, or whether an assumption has been made that I am just requesting the email body, not attached files. I am happy to clarify that any attachments also form part of my initial FOI.

You mentioned that some pass and some fail the public interest test , can you give me the details of how many emails and attachments did not pass the public interest test please?

Any reasoning behind the decision is most welcome, as the information released, in my eyes at least, does not have any useful information which to me makes me question why this would pass the public interest test.

Finally, you mention s31 exemption, but I have stated on previous FOIs that I have raised that the GC have public stated they have changed processes, and so there's no risk of operators exploiting information about how the regulator operates. In regards to a degree of confidentiality, I'd like to state that this is a story of the biggest collapse of a UK regulated gambling company in history, Index Labs is in liquidation, and it's subsidiaries are all dissolved or in liquidation - I am sure there would be quite a lot of understanding from the gambling operators about this specific exemption in confidentiality.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/i...

Yours faithfully,

Chris inman

Freedom of Information, Gambling Commission

Dear Sir

Thank you for your email requesting an internal review, I will arrange for this to be undertaken.

I can confirm that your appeal will be conducted by someone other than the original decision maker and that they will write to you directly with the outcome.

We aim to complete all appeals within 20 working days of receipt. We will advise you if we are unable to meet this timescale.

Kind regards

Information Management Team
Gambling Commission
Victoria Square House
Victoria Square
Birmingham B2 4BP

This email and any files transmitted with it are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please return it to the address it came from indicating that you are not the intended recipient and delete it from your system. Do not copy, distribute or take action based on this email. Freedom of Information requests can be submitted either by email ([email address]) or by writing to: FOI request Gambling Commission Victoria Square House Victoria Square Birmingham B2 4BP Please clearly state that your request is under the Freedom of Information Act.

Freedom of Information, Gambling Commission

Dear Mr Inman

 

Further to your Freedom of Information request dated 28/10/22 which we
responded to on 25/11/22, and your subsequent request for an internal
review received on 25/11/22, we have now concluded our review and our
findings are detailed below. This internal review was conducted by someone
who was not involved in the processing of your original request.

 

Your original request was for the following information:

 

Please provide all communications with the company Index Labs Limited (in
liquidation) and its directors between the dates of 1st July 2021 and the
28 Sep 2021.

 

We advised in our response that we have searched the Gambling Commission
email system for "Index Labs" using the date range 01/07/2021 to
28/09/2021.

 

The search of our records identified 12 documents which comprised of 7
emails and 5 attachments which I have set out in the table below for ease
of reference.

 

We have provided you with 5 redacted emails, however, the email dated
16/07/2021 was a duplicate email. I have highlighted in the table below
the documents which we have not disclosed to you in their entirety for the
reasons outlined in our original response. There are 5 withheld documents
which are comprised of 2 emails and 3 attachments (The attachments dated
16/07/2021 and 09/08/2021 are duplicates)

 

 

┌──────────┬─────────┬─────────────────┬──────────┬───────────┬──────────┐
│  │Email │Exemption │Attachment│Exemption │  │
├──────────┼─────────┼─────────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼──────────┤
│13/07/2021│Disclosed│S40 – Personal │Not │S31 – Law │  │
│ │– Partial│Information │disclosed │Enforcement│ │
│ │Redaction│ │ │ │ │
├──────────┼─────────┼─────────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼──────────┤
│15/07/2021│Disclosed│S40 – Personal │ │ │  │
│ │– Partial│Information/S31 –│ │ │ │
│ │Redaction│Law Enforcement │ │ │ │
├──────────┼─────────┼─────────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼──────────┤
│16/07/2021│Disclosed│S40 – Personal │Not │S31 – Law │  │
│ │– Partial│Information │disclosed │Enforcement│ │
│ │Redaction│ │ │ │ │
├──────────┼─────────┼─────────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼──────────┤
│16/07/2021│Disclosed│S40 – Personal │Not │S31 – Law │Duplicate │
│ │– Partial│Information │disclosed │Enforcement│Email and │
│ │Redaction│ │ │ │Attachment│
│ │ │ │ │ │to │
│ │ │ │ │ │16/07/2021│
├──────────┼─────────┼─────────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼──────────┤
│22/07/2021│Disclosed│S40 – Personal │Not │S31 – Law │  │
│ │– Partial│Information │disclosed │Enforcement│ │
│ │Redaction│ │ │ │ │
├──────────┼─────────┼─────────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼──────────┤
│09/08/2021│Not │S40 – Personal │Not │S31 – Law │Duplicate │
│ │Disclosed│Information/S31 –│disclosed │Enforcement│Attachment│
│ │ │Law Enforcement │ │ │to │
│ │ │ │ │ │22/07/2021│
├──────────┼─────────┼─────────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼──────────┤
│16/09/2021│Not │S40 – Personal │  │  │  │
│ │Disclosed│Information │ │ │ │
└──────────┴─────────┴─────────────────┴──────────┴───────────┴──────────┘

 

 

When assessing information each individual document has to be reviewed to
enable us to make a decision with regards to disclosure. During that
assessment process we consider if there are any exemptions that may apply.
We conduct a public interest test to consider the arguments for and
against disclosure which enables us to arrive at our decision with regards
to the disclosure of the information.

 

Some of the information that has been withheld from disclosure relates to
our regulatory work. For example, this may include the letters that have
been sent to the operator asking for specific information and their
subsequent response which, if disclosed, would reveal our regulatory
techniques. The withheld Information also relates to a Personal Licence
Holder which is exempt from disclosure as this is their personal
information. We have provided you with any information which in our view
is not exempt from disclosure.

 

In response to your comment with regards to the Commission changing its
processes, following the report of the Independent Review into the
regulation of BetIndex found [1]here, the following recommendations were
made to improve regulatory practice: 

 

a.     Prioritisation of novel products for enhanced regulatory scrutiny 

b.     Greater focus on fairness of terms at the licensing application
stage  

c.     Consideration of the effect of the language of investment and the
financial markets on consumer understanding of gambling products  

d.     Greater licensing and continuing scrutiny of divergences between
described and actual features of a product  

e.     Prompter decision making and action  

f.       Recognition for the need for internal escalation  

g.     Consideration of a different approach to customer funds in relation
to long-term, tradeable products 

 

The Commission has acted upon these recommendations and has incorporated
these changes into its processes and procedures. Implementing these
changes has not, however, fundamentally changed the process that the
Commission follows when conducting an assessment to such an extent that we
are now able to publicly disclose information that would further
understanding of these processes without this having an impact on our
current processes and statutory functions. 

 

If you are not content with the outcome of your FOI review, you may apply
directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision. Generally,
the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints
procedure provided by the Gambling Commission. The ICO can be contacted
at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

 

Kind regards

 

Governance Team

Gambling Commission
Victoria Square House
Victoria Square
Birmingham B2 4BP

 

This email and any files transmitted with it are intended solely for the
use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have
received this email in error please return it to the address it came from
indicating that you are not the intended recipient and delete it from your
system. Do not copy, distribute or take action based on this email.
Freedom of Information requests can be submitted either by email
([email address]) or by writing to: FOI request Gambling
Commission Victoria Square House Victoria Square Birmingham B2 4BP Please
clearly state that your request is under the Freedom of Information Act.

References

Visible links
1. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk...