Olympic Stadium; our day in court
Comments
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They're scraping the bottom of the barrel with that one.i_b_b_o_r_g said:2 -
"collectable"! Along with, presumably, all the other foam stadia you might wish to owni_b_b_o_r_g said:9 -
Anything anyone ?0
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http://www.newhamrecorder.co.uk/news/lldc_boss_defends_secrecy_around_west_ham_s_olympic_stadium_deal_1_4443440
Been googling on my old phone......
Latest thing I could find......0 -
Just back from Tribunal. Very interesting, but no judgement likely to be reached for 2 or 3 weeks.
Prague will no doubt do an insightful summary when he's finished his lunch. Suffice to say that, particularly after all the arcane and hard to hear legal stuff from the two barristers, it was brilliant to hear Prague present the lay man's point of view that basically the LLDC were just doing everything they could to delay their moment of acute embarrassment.
Mind you, he might have blown the whole thing because he couldn't resist making a Millwall joke. One of the panel members had a distinctly Cold Blow Lane look to her, I thought.12 -
No front teeth and six fingers?Pico said:Just back from Tribunal. Very interesting, but no judgement likely to be reached for 2 or 3 weeks.
Prague will no doubt do an insightful summary when he's finished his lunch. Suffice to say that, particularly after all the arcane and hard to hear legal stuff from the two barristers, it was brilliant to hear Prague present the lay man's point of view that basically the LLDC were just doing everything they could to delay their moment of acute embarrassment.
Mind you, he might have blown the whole thing because he couldn't resist making a Millwall joke. One of the panel members had a distinctly Cold Blow Lane look to her, I thought.10 -
Just got back.
The hearing finished about 1.30.
There had also been another behind closed doors session during the morning.
Others took notes regarding detail, but I would say that the best speaker by far was Prague.
For a start he was audible, unlike the professionals in the court, and for a second he measured up against the lawyers and whatnot and looked pretty much at home to me.
There were two main thrusts regarding why there should be disclosure.
One was about damage to future commercial activities, and the other was disclosure in the public interest.
The argument about commercial damage was very weak, at least what we have heard in open session, and the public interest argument seemed to me to be won hands down.
Richards stance was very good regarding the simple issue of the right to know how taxpayers money will be spent, and he was excellent in calling out the main players to put their case for secrecy, and what the real reason for the secrecy would be...embarrassment at the very least for the Olympic stadium and West Ham people. A West Ham rep was in court, so if they say the issue of commercial enterprise is separate from the issue of the free West Ham stadium, well they're clearly not.
There won't be a decision for a couple of weeks, and even then the decision can be further appealed at our expense, I hope the tribunal uphold the original decision and we can all see what all the secrecy has been about.
Prague was excellent and in my view deserves huge praise for his obvious hard work.
It is a natural justice issue to me, it's our money, how is it being spent!26 -
and covered in her own dads jizz?2
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Day of turgid legal waffle apart from @PragueAddick providing all the entertainment. Whole court including the po faced LLDC lawyer collapsed in laughter when Richard explained why Millwall was the only London club not part of the coalition challenging the deal - "they couldn't find anyone who could write".
Nothing to report but clear LLDC will appeal again if they lose.26 -
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I thought they could only appeal if there was an error in law?0
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How long can they keep appealing! Surely must be an end to it?Dippenhall said:Day of turgid legal waffle apart from @PragueAddick providing all the entertainment. Whole court including the po faced LLDC lawyer collapsed in laughter when Richard explained why Millwall was the only London club not part of the coalition challenging the deal - "they couldn't find anyone who could write".
Nothing to report but clear LLDC will appeal again if they lose.0 -
Don't tell LLDC, but they really have very limited grounds for appeal - effectively they must show that the FTT erred in law (rather than fact), also the FTT often makes decisions on the balance of probability. If the LLDC want to challenge the judgement they must do so within 28 days and the most likely avenue is to go back to the original Tribunal to reconsider (which might look like mucking everyone about).Dippenhall said:Day of turgid legal waffle apart from @PragueAddick providing all the entertainment. Whole court including the po faced LLDC lawyer collapsed in laughter when Richard explained why Millwall was the only London club not part of the coalition challenging the deal - "they couldn't find anyone who could write".
Nothing to report but clear LLDC will appeal again if they lose.
Incidentally, assuming the right side wins, it may well be worth seeking to ask the LLDC, via FOI, how much public money has been spent keeping the public in the dark about the stadium agreements.9 -
I think they will try to spin things out as long as possible hoping folk will simply give up.
I don't really know a lot about the little details of this stuff, but there are still important principles wrapped up in the issue.
One that Richard highlighted today was how can you talk to your elected representatives about how taxpayers money is spent if it is kept secret?
We are not talking matters of National Security here (unless that came up behind closed doors) but an issue where the if stadium people's cats came running out of bags, then Twickenham, or Wembley or wherever will have a commercial edge.
The arguments around negotiating deals for the stadium were, to coin a phrase, weedy.
There has been questions raised about why the taxpayer should be motivated to find things out, and why Prague is motivated to do so, as if there is some kind of sinister plot to stop the good old Olympic people do wholesome business.
However when it comes to motivation, the real question is what is motivating them to keep it so secret.4 -
The problem for the LLDC is that they cannot hope to use a motivation argument, unless they are hoping to show the request as being vexatious/manifestly unreasonable. Under the legislation, they are obliged to be both motive and applicant blind.seth plum said:I think they will try to spin things out as long as possible hoping folk will simply give up.
I don't really know a lot about the little details of this stuff, but there are still important principles wrapped up in the issue.
One that Richard highlighted today was how can you talk to your elected representatives about how taxpayers money is spent if it is kept secret?
We are not talking matters of National Security here (unless that came up behind closed doors) but an issue where the if stadium people's cats came running out of bags, then Twickenham, or Wembley or wherever will have a commercial edge.
The arguments around negotiating deals for the stadium were, to coin a phrase, weedy.
There has been questions raised about why the taxpayer should be motivated to find things out, and why Prague is motivated to do so, as if there is some kind of sinister plot to stop the good old Olympic people do wholesome business.
However when it comes to motivation, the real question is what is motivating them to keep it so secret.
There is clearly a public interest in the information (transparency and openness in government), the LLDC task was to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Tribunal that the public interest in protecting their (and other organisations') commercial confidentiality was greater. If they have failed to do that, I can see no reason why the Tribunal would find in their favour.0 -
Their core argument (that they didn't think of until the appeal) is that the Public Interest test for disclosure which normally trumps commercial interests should trumped by applying be a second Public Interest test that considers the negative effect of disclosure. LLDC say they will get less revenue if potential event organisers know the terms of the West Ham deal.
As this trumping of the Public Interest test is probably an argument never used before, LLDC will im sure argue it's a point of law if they lose and that the Tribunal is not empowered to decide. Hence an appeal on a point of law.
Richard pulled no punches in pulling this argument apart and why they are just delaying tactics. Its clear to everyone they are making it up as they go along.6 -
Just back and letting it all sink in.
The problem is that we do not know what has been said in closed session, which involves revealing some of the details we want to see. I understand why that has to be, but I could not interrogate that stuff. The ICO barrister felt the judges were slightly less inclined towards us than last time, so that can only be because of the closed session stuff. Her best guess is that there will be a partial victory. Some more stuff revealed, but not everything.
I fear that the LLDC will appeal on a point of law, because the very act of appealing stops any further disclosure, and gains another few months while the appeal is heard. Which means by then West Ham will be esconced in the Stadium, and they suspect the political will to do something about the contract will be dissipated. I said very clearly that that has always been their plan in constantly being late in all FOI responses, and then deciding to appeal on the last afternoon before the deadline.
We already know they had spent £21,000 on this appeal, but that was not including todays session. Your money, well spent...15 -
Well done Richard........
You will /we will win in the end.
Back to the Valley.
Won that one .........1 -
Richard, if the guess is partial it must be to do with stuff we didn't hear in the closed sessions.
I would prefer to think that the 'partial' would mean nearly everything revealed, with a very token secret being left undisclosed.
Anyway I am hoping for total disclosure.0 -
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BTW Chris Slegg from BBC London was there. Difficult news story because there is no decision, but we did do an interview which may run on BBC London radio before the Spurs - Dortmund game tonight. We also covered Charlton, and afterwards I tipped him off about Mel Baroni.12
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My head hurts now...Dippenhall said:Their core argument (that they didn't think of until the appeal) is that the Public Interest test for disclosure which normally trumps commercial interests should trumped by applying be a second Public Interest test that considers the negative effect of disclosure. LLDC say they will get less revenue if potential event organisers know the terms of the West Ham deal.
As this trumping of the Public Interest test is probably an argument never used before, LLDC will im sure argue it's a point of law if they lose and that the Tribunal is not empowered to decide. Hence an appeal on a point of law.
Richard pulled no punches in pulling this argument apart and why they are just delaying tactics. Its clear to everyone they are making it up as they go along.
Because this sort of stuff is what I work with, I'm a bit concerned about their approach.
The Public Interest Test should be used to identify the pro and anti disclosure arguments (any negative impact should have been considered at this stage).
I would have thought that the request should have been handled under EIR rather than FOI. Under EIR they have to demonstrate that disclosure will have an impact on the commercial confidentiality associated with the information (the normal rule of thumb is that this has to be and actionable case that they would expect to lose).
I'm not really sure how the information should be considered commercially confidential, the only stadium like the Olympic Stadium that the LLDC has is the Olympic Stadium - if they are arguing that release of the information will damage their future income for non-football events at that venue, the deal must be even worse for the taxpayer than we'd thought.
If the LLDC are arguing a new interpretation of EIR (or FOI) I think they'll be on to a loser.
I like EIR (even though on the government side), as you actually have greater rights to access information, I would imagine that, if this is the legislation associated with the appeal, the LLDC would struggle to reinterpret it (more so than FOI), as it is based on the Aarhus Convention.0 -
They argue that it is a highly competitive stadium use market in London, and they have to keep an edge.
They have cited Twickenham, Wembley, and large football stadia in the capital as their direct competition for commercial sales.
The reality is the market is limited and specialised, and their negotiators can easily make stand alone deals of all kinds that are not linked to West Ham or anybody else.
Behind their case is the notion that the Olympic Stadium will generate money for the public purse.
It will have to generate a lot of money just to cover the £700million total spend so far which was a figure that was mentioned in the tribunal today.0 -
@NornIrishAddick what is EIR?0
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Don't worry, I get that argument, but it is very likely, is it not, that there is a general rule of thumb for pricing venues of a certain capacity in London. I would imagine that promoters would know to within a couple of hundred pounds what they should pay for a venue. From the way things have been described, I assume that the LLDC must have been attempting to demonstrate that the damage of disclosure would be that other users would want the same or similar deal as West Ham for their events. And it is a fair argument, it just undermines the idea that they have sought to achieve the best deal for the taxpayer with the Olympic legacy; if I were in the LLDC, I would worry that this argument would be at least as damaging to them as the disclosure would be.seth plum said:They argue that it is a highly competitive stadium use market in London, and they have to keep an edge.
They have cited Twickenham, Wembley, and large football stadia in the capital as their direct competition for commercial sales.
The reality is the market is limited and specialised, and their negotiators can easily make stand alone deals of all kinds that are not linked to West Ham or anybody else.
Behind their case is the notion that the Olympic Stadium will generate money for the public purse.
It will have to generate a lot of money just to cover the £700million total spend so far which was a figure that was mentioned in the tribunal today.
They'd have been better off making Orient the lead tenant.
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Environmental Information Regulations.
Evenin' all.2 -
They banged on quite a few times that originally it was open for anybody to bid, and it ended up with West Ham.
Maybe Leyton Orient didn't quite get that it would be a free gift of £170million or so, nor anybody else.
Karren Brady is a Tory baroness you know, Lord Coe a Tory Peer, Boris a Tory Mayor.
Legacy.4 -
Apologies, as Gavros said, the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.PragueAddick said:@NornIrishAddick what is EIR?
Came into force on 1 January 2005, alongside FOI. Section 39 of FOI excludes environmental information, for which Regulation 2 of EIR provides a definition (it's a lot broader than people might imagine).
A stadium, and the financial planning associated with it, would fall within the definition.
The ICO has oversight of both.
As I have said before, EIR is actually better for open government, as it has a far stronger presumption in favour of making information available.0 -
As I understand it the Public Interest Test only comes into play if the IOC have rules in favour of suppressing release and then has to consider whether the overriding public interest takes precedence and trumps the reasons for suppression e.g commercial sensitivity.NornIrishAddick said:
My head hurts now...Dippenhall said:Their core argument (that they didn't think of until the appeal) is that the Public Interest test for disclosure which normally trumps commercial interests should trumped by applying be a second Public Interest test that considers the negative effect of disclosure. LLDC say they will get less revenue if potential event organisers know the terms of the West Ham deal.
As this trumping of the Public Interest test is probably an argument never used before, LLDC will im sure argue it's a point of law if they lose and that the Tribunal is not empowered to decide. Hence an appeal on a point of law.
Richard pulled no punches in pulling this argument apart and why they are just delaying tactics. Its clear to everyone they are making it up as they go along.
Because this sort of stuff is what I work with, I'm a bit concerned about their approach.
The Public Interest Test should be used to identify the pro and anti disclosure arguments (any negative impact should have been considered at this stage).
I would have thought that the request should have been handled under EIR rather than FOI. Under EIR they have to demonstrate that disclosure will have an impact on the commercial confidentiality associated with the information (the normal rule of thumb is that this has to be and actionable case that they would expect to lose).
I'm not really sure how the information should be considered commercially confidential, the only stadium like the Olympic Stadium that the LLDC has is the Olympic Stadium - if they are arguing that release of the information will damage their future income for non-football events at that venue, the deal must be even worse for the taxpayer than we'd thought.
If the LLDC are arguing a new interpretation of EIR (or FOI) I think they'll be on to a loser.
I like EIR (even though on the government side), as you actually have greater rights to access information, I would imagine that, if this is the legislation associated with the appeal, the LLDC would struggle to reinterpret it (more so than FOI), as it is based on the Aarhus Convention.
The closed session we assume explored the detail of the "sensitive" issues, and whether they are hypothetical, not actual imminent risks.
I don't see why the Tribunal should even consider the argument if they reject exemption on grounds of commercial protection. The lawyer has managed to create an impression of frenzied concern on the part of the LLDC not being able to secure the best deal as a result of new customers demanding what West Ham have.
They are entirely contrived arguments relying on the fiction that LLDC aren't in control of pricing a commercial contact on the rules of supply and demand.1 -
Well done Richard. All goes well over my head but excellent to see the progress and hopefully we'll get a good end result soon.1
