Olympic Stadium State Aid

London Legacy Development Corporation did not have the information requested.

Dear London Legacy Development Corporation,

The Government has recently responded to a petition request to hold a public inquiry into West Ham & LLDC deal for rental of Olympic Stadium (www.petition.parliament.uk/petitions/106355). The response provided by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport includes the following:

...."The European Commission (EC) is responsible for assessing whether public investment distorts the competitive market. The EC has considered this issue on more than one occasion and has done so with full sight of the contractual terms, comprehensive detail of the tender exercise and in depth legal opinion on compliance with UK and EU law. It has found no case to answer. Therefore we do not believe that a public inquiry is necessary."....

Please can you provide copies of all correspondence between the LLDC and the European Commission (EC) in relation to the concessionaire agreement with West Ham United. Please confirmation and correspondence of when the EC was given full sight of the contract and when written confirmation was received from the EC that there was 'No Case to Answer'.

Please note that I will be writing separately to the EC to inquire as to why no details of their investigation have been include on the register of competition cases.

Yours faithfully,

A Walker

foi, London Legacy Development Corporation

Dear Sir / Madam,

I can confirm that your request for information has been received and a response will be sent to you within 20 working days (16 October 2015).

Your reference for this request is 15-061.

Yours sincerely,

Rachael

Rachael Clauson
FOI/EIR Coordinator
London Legacy Development Corporation
Level 10
1 Stratford Place, Montfichet Road
London
E20 1EJ

Email: [LLDC request email]
Website: www.QueenElizabethOlympicPark.co.uk

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is now open. For more information please visit www.QueenElizabethOlympicPark.co.uk

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Dear Rachael,

I write in reference to my Freedoom of Information request (your reference 15-061) to remind you that a response is due by no later than tomorrow (16 October 2015). I look forward to recieving the requested information shortly.

Yours sincerely,

A Walker

foi, London Legacy Development Corporation

2 Attachments

Dear Sir / Madam,

Please find attached our response to your information request ref: 15-061.

Yours sincerely

Rachael

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Dear Rachael,

Thank you for sending through the information requested. The response indicates that it would be the department of business, innovation and skills (BIS) that would have entered into direct correspondence with the European Commission on this case. In view that my original request sought confirmation that the European Commission has had sight of an unredacted copy of the agreement, please can you outline if BIS have been provided with an unredacted copy of the agreement. If so, when was it requested and was this requested for the puroses of sending the agreement to the EC?

Yours sincerely,

A Walker

Rachael Clauson, London Legacy Development Corporation

I am out of the office until Monday 19 October 2015.

 

I will not have access to this mailbox during this period.

 

For enquiries relating to:

 

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or Environment Information Regulation
(EIR) requests, please redirect your email to:

[LLDC request email]

 

 

 

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Montfichet Road, London, E20 1EJ.

www.queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk
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Richard Hunt left an annotation ()

Dear Mr Walker

I was the author of one of the complaints to the EC about possible unfair State Aid. The EC concluded that at this time I had not provided sufficient information to warrant the opening of a formal investigation. Nevertheless in its answer the EC provided me with a 26 page defence submission they had received. This submission contained redaction of most commercial information (although some useful nuggets remained visible which were redacted from the rental contract the LLDC sent to me under FOI request). I also assumed at the time that the "authors" were the LLDC because I could ascertain that the person who prepared the Word document was a lawyer who at the time was a full time employee of the LLDC. So I was initially puzzled by the response to you. However on inspection I see that the response to the EC refers to "the UK authorities" as the implied author. Nevertheless, the document refers to the LLDC specifically in the past supplying information to the EC to justify the deployment of public funds. In the response I have, the "UK Authorities" provide an "Annex" describing the financial aspects of the deal. This implies that the EC therefore have NOT had sight of the complete rental contract. I cannot tell therefore whether the Dept. of Business has itself got a copy of the contract, because the author of the document was an employee of the LLDC, even if it has been sent under Dept of Business auspices.

I'd be very happy to provide you with a copy of the document in question.

Dear London Legacy Development Corporation,

I have not had a response to my email of 15 October. Please provide confirmation whether a full copy of the stadium concession contract was passed on to BIS for the purposes of passing to EC for assessing state aid.

My original request stated...' Please confirmation
and correspondence of when the EC was given full sight of the
contract and when written confirmation was received from the EC
that there was 'No Case to Answer'.

I therefore believe the information outlined above falls within the scope of the original freedom of information request. Given the confidentiality around this agreement I would be surprised if full unredacted copies were handed out to government departments without knowing where it would be passed on to. I await confirmation as a matter of urgency.

Yours faithfully,

A Walker

Rachael Clauson, London Legacy Development Corporation

I am out of the office until Wednesday 11 November 2015.

 

I will not have access to this mailbox during this period.

 

For enquiries relating to:

 

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or Environment Information Regulation
(EIR) requests, please redirect your email to:

[LLDC request email]

 

 

 

This communication and the information it contains is intended for the
addressee only. It may be confidential, legally privileged and protected
by law. Unauthorised use, copying or disclosure of any of it may be
unlawful. If you have received this communication in error, please contact
me immediately by email or telephone and then delete the e-mail and its
attachments from your system. This email and any attachments have been
scanned for viruses by Symantec and on leaving the London Legacy
Development Corporation they were virus free. No liability will be
incurred for direct, special or indirect or consequential damages arising
from alteration of the contents of this message by a third party or as a
result of any virus contained within it or attached to it. The London
Legacy Development Corporation may monitor traffic data. For enquiries
please call 020 3288 1800.
London Legacy Development Corporation, Level 10, 1 Stratford Place,
Montfichet Road, London, E20 1EJ.

www.queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk
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foi, London Legacy Development Corporation

Dear Sir / Madam,

BIS, who then sent on to the EC, were sent full details of the tender exercise used to appoint the long-term concessionaire and in depth legal opinion to show compliance with UK and EU law. On confirmation of the appointment of the concessionaire further information was sent setting out in significant detail all the contractual terms, although they were not sent a copy of the full concession agreement itself, which also included irrelevant information such as stadium floorplans. We fully complied with all the requests for information from BIS and the EC in order for them to make their decision.

A confirmation of their decision was received on 6 October 2014, this was then confirmed again in press statement issued in May 2015.

Regards

Rachael

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