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The Government
Contractor
Information and Analysis on Legal Aspects of Procurement
®
Vol. 63, No. 2 January 13, 2021 every case will present the same facts as Argus; in-
deed few have. Therefore, the legacy of Argus, so far
Focus as it can be determined after 18 months in the wild,
has included attempts by courts to wrestle with is-
sues that the Court, either intentionally or not, left
¶9 out of its intentionally simple analysis. While some
cases have fit easily into the Argus mold, others
FEATURE COMMENT: Argus Leader After have presented more complex circumstances, and
A Year In The Wild: Judicial Application courts and practitioners have had to fill in gaps
Of FOIA Exemption 4 In The Post-Argus and account for complications not presented by the
Leader World original Argus facts. Courts have wrestled with
whether affirmative assurances of confidentiality
In June 2019, the Supreme Court fundamentally from the agency are needed, whether the submitter
reversed course from decades of Freedom of In- has demonstrated that submitted information has
formation Act (FOIA) Exemption 4 case law in its actually been kept confidential, whether the impact
decision in Food Mktg. Inst. v. Argus Leader Media, of the 2016 FOIA Improvement Act has an impact
139 S. Ct. 2356 (2019); 61 GC ¶ 213. In this ruling, on Argus, and more.
the Supreme Court jettisoned (indeed, mocked and Argus started in a gilded cage, its clean, simple
pilloried) the D.C. Circuit’s long-standing principle facts allowing the Court to make a strong textualist
that information was not protected by Exemption point. In the 18 months since its release, however,
4 unless its release was likely to cause “substantial it has evolved, and will continue to evolve as it is
competitive harm” to the submitter. Justice Gor- applied to less carefully chosen facts.
such, in a straightforward deconstruction, found Argus in Captivity—The Court in Argus
that harm was mentioned nowhere in Exemption overturned a broadly accepted, 45-year-old D.C.
4, and should not be placed there by judges. Circuit precedent establishing the framework for
Argus has, as the Court no doubt intended, led consideration of claims that information submit-
many lower courts to apply a much simpler test for ted to the Government should not be released
application of Exemption 4. Where the facts are as under FOIA due to the application of Exemption
they were in Argus, i.e. where a submitter provides 4, for “trade secrets and commercial or financial
information to the Government that it otherwise information obtained from a person and privileged
keeps confidential, and the Government provides or confidential.” 5 USCA § 552(b)(4). Under this
the submitter with an explicit assurance of confi- precedent, courts asked whether disclosure of sub-
dentiality, the analysis is over, and the information mitted materials was likely either: “(1) to impair
is properly withheld. In these cases, following courts the Government’s ability to obtain necessary in-
have required no showing that release of the mate- formation in the future; or (2) to cause substantial
rial would cause competitive harm, explicitly citing harm to the competitive position of the person from
Argus as overruling this prior test used by the D.C. whom the information was obtained.” Nat’l Parks
Circuit in cases such as National Parks. & Conservation Ass’n v. Morton, 498 F.2d 765, 770
So far, so good, and so predictable, given the (D.C. Cir. 1974).
intentionally simple Argus analysis. The opinion in The Supreme Court in Argus rejected this test
Argus is only 12 pages long, and is a good example as inconsistent with the plain language of Exemp-
of a case chosen for streamlined facts that enable tion 4, which contains no reference to competitive
the Court to render a basic principle clearly. But not harm. Instead, the Court relied on the ordinary
4-270-165-2 © 2021 Thomson Reuters¶9 The Government Contractor®
definition of “confidential” as merely “private or se- occupied the attention not only of courts, but of
cret” as opposed to harmful. 139 S. Ct. at 2362–63. the Department of Justice, which conducts FOIA
The Court identified two circumstances under which litigation on behalf of the Government. Likely not
information might qualify as confidential: when it is wishing to impose new burdens on Government of-
“customarily kept private” or if it was provided under ficials to police the FOIA status of every document
“some assurance that it will remain secret.” In Argus, they receive, DOJ in October of 2019 issued public
the information was customarily kept confidential, guidance asserting that implicit, or constructive,
and the agency explicitly assured the submitter that assurances should qualify under the Argus test,
the information submitted would not be released. and could be implied from a course of Government
The Court held that under those circumstances, the action or the regulations of an agency:
information qualified for Exemption 4. [I]n the context of Exemption 4, agencies can
The decision in Argus provides as clear an illus- look to the context in which the information
tration of a textualist approach to statutory inter- was provided to the government to determine if
pretation as is likely to be found. Indeed, Argus has there was an implied assurance of confidential-
become a leading statement on this topic. According ity. Factors to consider include the government’s
to Westlaw, Argus has been cited more than 40 times treatment of similar information and its broader
for its textualist lessons (Headnotes 13 and 7). This treatment of information related to the program
is more than twice as many citations as for its actual or initiative to which the information relates. For
FOIA holding (Headnote 17). The argument for the example, an agency’s long history of protecting
National Parks test has some natural force in the certain commercial or financial information can
context of FOIA as a disclosure statute. If the stat- serve as an implied assurance to submitters that
ute was intended to err on the side of disclosure, as the agency will continue treating their records in
it surely was, the D.C. Circuit’s harm test acted to the same manner.
prevent frivolous or reflexive assertions of protection. See www.justice.gov/oip/exemption-4-after-
But Justice Gorsuch was having none of this, observ- supreme-courts-ruling-food-marketing-institute-v-
ing simply that the statute should mean what it said argus-leader-media.
when it said FOIA did not apply to “trade secrets and Courts have addressed this issue in various
commercial or financial information obtained from a ways, and have generally agreed with DOJ, when
person and privileged or confidential.” Harm does not they have addressed the issue. Some courts have
appear, he observed, so it is not to be added. avoided stating clearly whether assurances are re-
Having said this much, he elected to say nothing quired, preferring instead to find that assurances
else, leaving the elaboration and resolution of special do exist, thus mooting the issue even without clear
cases to the lower courts. In the past 18 months, we evidence. For example, in Friends of Animals v. Ber-
have observed exactly that, and several unique post- nhardt, the agency provided the submitter privacy
Argus litigation themes have evolved. We discuss notices “assur[ing] submitters that their information
several of them below, though this is not an exhaus- will not be given, sold, or transferred to third parties
tive list. except as required by law.” 2020 WL 2041337, *11
Are Assurances of Confidentiality Re- (D. Colo. April 24, 2020) (emphasis added). Despite
quired?—In Argus, the Court held that where the the provision in these notices allowing release of the
Government provided explicit assurances of confi- submitted material “as required by law [i.e. FOIA,]”
dentiality, Exemption 4 could apply. Argus, 139 S. the court found the notices to be a direct assurance
Ct. at 2362–63. Justice Gorsuch himself asked the of confidentiality. The court avoided the issue by
natural follow-up question: “Can privately held infor- observing that “information could be disclosed pur-
mation lose its confidential character for purposes of suant to FOIA,” but that is “true of all information
Exemption 4 if it’s communicated to the government held by the government.” Id. (emphasis in original).
without assurances that the government will keep it In other words, the court found the notice to simul-
private?” Id. at 2363 (emphasis added). Having asked taneously mean nothing and to express an explicit
it, however, he gave no answer. assurance of confidentiality. By such means, the
Predictably, this question has animated great court avoided the need to fill in Justice Gorsuch’s
concern in the wake of the decision, and it has blank with an explicit ruling.
2 © 2021 Thomson ReutersVol. 63, No. 2 / January 13, 2021 ¶9
Several other courts dealing with cases without not necessary to decide if such assurances were re-
an affirmative assurance of confidentiality have quired at this juncture, but noted if it were required,
grasped the nettle more firmly, and agreed with DOJ defendants would have failed the requirement. Id.
that implied assurances are sufficient and a rela- Even though no court has applied the assurances
tively easy burden to meet. For example, in Citizens of confidentiality prong of Argus to reject a withhold-
for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Dep’t ing claim under Exemption 4, enough courts have
of Commerce, the U.S. District Court for the District utilized a “belt-and-suspenders” approach—finding
of Columbia (DDC) “assumed” that some assurance implied assurances to exist, whether or not they are
of confidentiality was required (without analysis) required—that submitters would be wise to fully brief
and that any such assurance could be express or and argue the existence of such assurances just in
implied. 2020 WL 4732095, *3 (D.D.C. Aug. 14, 2020). case. Critically, this should include preservation of
The court then found the “context” in which the sub- documentation of agency course-of-dealing that can
mitter provided the information (emails containing be used to establish that the agency agreed with (or
business information sent to a public official “to grow did not object to) submitter markings and statements
its business in foreign markets”) supported that the that material is being submitted with an expectation
submitter did so under an implied assurance of con- of confidentiality. If the agency has any regulations
fidentiality. that govern confidentiality, these should be explicitly
Another DDC judge applied the same analysis cited in all submission correspondence.
in David H. Besson v. Dep’t of Commerce, holding Increased Litigation Surrounding the Na-
that “context shows that the information was sup- ture of Confidentiality—Under the previous Na-
plied under an implied assurance of confidentiality,” tional Parks analysis, the majority of complex fact-
without explaining whether or why such a finding finding in FOIA cases arose under the competitive
was required for Exemption 4 withholding. 2020 WL harm prong. Submitters introduced details regard-
4500894, *5 (D.D.C. Aug. 5, 2020). In that case, the ing the relevant competitive landscape and sought
requisite “context” was simply that a private company to show through affidavits and expert testimony
provided sensitive commercial and financial informa- that the information to be released would either
tion to the Government in the process of negotiating directly reveal competitively sensitive information,
a cooperative research and development agreement, or that competitively sensitive information could
emphasizing how easy such an implied assurance is be derived from the information sought. In cases
to demonstrate. like McDonnell Douglas I and II, the D.C. Circuit
Acceptance of constructive or implied assurances reviewed extensive analysis of pricing and other
appears to be the direction of the law, and it neatly data to assess whether the released numbers could
addresses Justice Gorsuch’s open question. The be used to derive conclusions that a competitor could
question of constructive assurance, however, places use against a submitter in future competitions. See
a litigable fact issue on the table that requesters McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Nat’l. Aeronautics and
have begun to exploit, and they will likely continue Space Admin., 180 F.3d 303, 305 (D.C. Cir. 1999); 41
to do so. While we are aware of no cases denying GC ¶ 313; McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. U.S. Dep’t of
Exemption 4 withholding to information because of the Air Force, 375 F. 3d 1182, 1189 (D.C. Cir. 2004).
an absence of assurances of confidentiality, the DDC These disputes over the impact of the requested
seemed to come close to such a holding in rejecting release were the pivot around which the factual dis-
a submitter’s declarations that were supposed to putes in most FOIA litigation would turn.
establish confidentiality of submitted information After Argus’s rejection of the National Parks
for lack of sufficient foundation in Ctr. for Investi- harm standard, this battle over details has been
gative Reporting v. U.S. Customs and Border Prot., largely superseded (though, see below regarding
436 F. Supp. 3d 90 (D.D.C. 2019). As a “deficiency” the 2016 FOIA Amendments). The Court in Argus
of the declarations (one among several), the chief required only that the submitter demonstrate that
judge of the DDC noted that “defendants have not the information in dispute “is both customarily and
satisfied a potential additional requirement recently actually treated as private by its owner.” Argus
highlighted by the Supreme Court”—assurances of Leader, 139 S. Ct. at 2366. In many pre-Argus cases
confidentiality. Id. at 112. The chief judge found it dealing with involuntarily submitted information (see
© 2021 Thomson Reuters 3¶9 The Government Contractor®
discussion of Critical Mass below), the parties would submitter only had to show that its information was
simply stipulate to confidentiality and litigate harm. “of a kind that would customarily not be released to
Since Argus, however, cases have arisen in which the public” to obtain Exemption 4 protection. Critical
plaintiffs have demanded detailed discovery and proof Mass, 975 F.2d at 879. Indeed, the legacy of Argus
that a company truly has treated its information as Leader could credibly be expressed as the erasure
confidential. of the distinction between involuntarily and volun-
These efforts have borne significant fruit in some tarily submitted material, and the vindication of the
cases. In Am. Small Bus. League v. U.S. Dep’t of Def., Critical Mass standard. This is an appealing reading,
for example, the submitter provided various affidavits as the judges that decided Critical Mass considered
of company personnel with some authority over the overruling National Parks on a similar basis to that
documents in question. The plaintiff heavily attacked which the Court eventually cited in Argus Leader—
the details of these affidavits, and demanded deposi- lack of textual support. See Critical Mass, 975 F.2d
tions and document discovery to explore issues raised 882 (Randolph, J., concurring, implying that a court
in the submissions. The court agreed and ordered full applying National Parks approaches “a point of
discovery on the question of confidentiality. 411 F. departure that is genuinely not to be found within
Supp. 3d 824, 830–33 (N.D. Cal. 2019). the language of the statute, [and] finds itself cut off
More recently, in WP Co. LLC d/b/a The Wash- from that authoritative source of the law, and ends
ington Post et al. v. U.S. Small Bus. Admin., the agen- up construing not the statute but its own construc-
cy argued that non-confidential CARES Act loan data tion.”), quoting NLRB v. Int’l Bhd. of Elec. Workers,
sought under FOIA could be used to derive different 481 U.S. 573, 597–98 (1987) (Scalia, J., concurring).
submitter information that is confidential. In an anal- The court in Critical Mass decided they could not
ysis reminiscent of the old McDonnell Douglas-era overcome stare decisis, while the Supreme Court in
competitive harm cases, the DDC carefully assessed Argus felt no such compunctions.
the agency’s assertion that competitors could derive Impact of the 2016 FOIA Amendments—
confidential information from the summaries and While the “substantial likelihood of competitive
partial details contained in the requested documents. harm” National Parks standard was eliminated—
The court found the derivation of the supposedly con- declared baseless and incorrect—by the Court
fidential information to be too tenuous and ruled that in Argus, another iteration of the harm test has
Exemption 4 did not apply. 2020 WL 6504534 (D.D.C. arisen in post-Argus FOIA litigation based upon
Nov. 5, 2020) (finding no “clear mathematical relation- the amendments to FOIA passed within the 2016
ship” necessarily revealing confidential information). FOIA Improvement Act. Under the terms of the
While in the immediate aftermath of Argus, some 2016 Amendments, an agency may apply a FOIA
commentators predicted the end of fact-intensive liti- exemption only when it “reasonably foresees that
gation surrounding withholding under Exemption 4, disclosure would harm an interest protected by” the
that has proven to not be the case. See, e.g. Hoover, J., exemption applied. 5 USCA § 552(a)(8)(i)(I). This
“Justices Expand Protection Of Confidential Contrac- standard of “reasonably foreseeing” some “harm”
tor Info,” Law360 (“Under this new standard, it will is phrased differently than the National Parks re-
be much easier for contractors and other entities to quirement for a “likelihood of substantial competi-
fit within the exemption to disclosure. It will also be tive harm,” but FOIA plaintiffs have nevertheless
more difficult to use FOIA to collect business intel- sought—with some success—to argue that this
ligence about competitors.”). The Argus decision has language limits the reach of Argus (which related
simply shifted these detailed, extensive—and expen- to pre-2016 Amendment requests). According to
sive—fights to other issues, from competitive harm to these plaintiffs, the Amendments apply a statutory
the nature of confidentiality and agency intent. harm standard to Exemption 4 nearly identical to
We note that the Argus Leader confidentiality the judge-made standard rejected by Argus, and
standard shares much with the “voluntary disclo- essentially re-impose the National Parks standard
sure” standard proposed as a gloss on the National upon all requests filed after the effective date of the
Parks test by the D.C. Circuit in Critical Mass En- Amendments (June 30, 2016).
ergy Project v. NRC, 975 F.2d 871 (D.C. Cir. 1992). The success of this argument depends in the
In Critical Mass, the Circuit held that a voluntary first instance upon whether it is made at all. Many
4 © 2021 Thomson ReutersVol. 63, No. 2 / January 13, 2021 ¶9
cases relating to post-2016 FOIA requests have ap- ing disputes, as whether or not a company maintains
plied Argus as removing the harm standard without certain information as confidential would seem to be
any discussion of (or reference to) the 2016 Amend- a knowable and non-controversial fact. This has not
ments, leaving open the question of whether the turned out to be the case. As described above, Exemp-
Amendments played any role in the case. See, e.g., tion 4 litigation thus far in the post-Argus world has
Friends of Animals v. Bernhardt, 2020 WL 2041337 retained its battle-of-the-declarations characteristic,
(D. Colo. April 24, 2020) (straightforward appli- with the focus of declarations merely changing from
cation of Argus with no mention of 2016 amend- competitive harm to confidentiality.
ments); WP Co. LLC d/b/a The Wash. Post et al. v. Agencies have not been consistent in their ap-
U.S. Small Bus. Admin., 2020 WL 6504534 (D.D.C. proaches. Contractors have been surprised to receive
Nov. 5, 2020) (same). pre-disclosure notifications from federal agencies
Where courts have addressed this issue, plaintiffs post-Argus that continue to request a justification of
have met some success—but by no means universally. withholding on the basis of competitive harm. Many
In fact, two different judges in the Northern District of these seen by the authors have continued to cite
of California reached directly opposing views on the National Parks. Whether these agencies have simply
matter. Ctr. for Investigative Reporting v. U.S. Dep’t not updated their form notification letters or are
of Labor is the first case we are aware of to apply the taking a stand regarding the application of the 2016
2016 Amendments post-Argus to require a showing FOIA Amendments is unclear, but Argus, and the
of competitive harm, albeit in dicta. In that case, disparate agency response to it, raise questions about
the court found that the “FOIA Improvement Act’s what pre-disclosure consultation between agencies
‘foreseeable harm’ requirement replaces to some and requesters will look like in coming years.
extent the ‘substantial competitive harm’ test that Alert contractors have been caught in the middle,
the Supreme Court overruled” in Argus and requires needing to justify withholding based on two stan-
defendants to “explain how disclosing, in whole or dards—one asserted by the agency, and the other
in part, the specific information withheld under proclaimed by the Supreme Court. DOJ, meanwhile,
Exemption 4 would harm an interest protected by has sought to define the new standard, issuing guid-
this exemption, such as by causing ‘genuine harm to ance instructing agencies to utilize pre-disclosure
[the submitter’s] economic or business interests.’ ” notifications to request submitters’ views on the
436 F. Supp. 3d 90, 113 (N.D. Cal. 2019) (quoting the confidentiality of the requested materials, without
Argus concurrence). Compare this to Am. Small Bus. referencing competitive harm. (See www.justice.gov/
League v. U.S. Dep’t of Def., et al., in which the court oip/exemption-4-after-supreme-courts-ruling-food-
squarely rejected plaintiff’s assertion that the 2016 marketing-institute-v-argus-leader-media.)
FOIA Amendments enshrined a mandatory harm Conclusion—Argus precedent continues to
test applicable to Exemption 4. 411 F. Supp. 3d 824, evolve as courts adapt the unique facts of their cases
835–36 (N.D. Cal. 2019) (finding “the Supreme Court to the sparse terms of the Supreme Court’s holding.
expressly discredited that notion”). The issues above have arisen consistently, but other
At this time, it is unclear how this question will issues are as yet untested. What will happen if an
be resolved, and what final impact the 2016 FOIA agency not only issues a pre-release notice using the
Amendments have upon the withholding analysis old standard, but bases its release decisions on it?
under Argus and Exemption 4, but this issue will What is the current relation between the Trade Se-
likely resurface in cases going forward. crets Act and Exemption 4? As DOJ has stated in its
Best Practices and Pre-Release Consulta- most updated Exemption 4 guide, “nearly every court
tion—For many companies, the practical impact of that has considered the issue has found the Trade
Argus has been to change the focus of submissions Secrets Act and Exemption 4 to be coextensive.” See
justifying the withholding of their confidential com- Department of Justice Guide to the Freedom of In-
mercial information under Exemption 4 but not formation Act, “Exemption 4” at 18–19. However, the
necessarily to reduce the burden of preparing these cases cited by DOJ, including Canadian Commercial
submissions. Upon Argus’s release, there was great Corp. v. Dep’t of Air Force, 514 F.3d 37 (D.C. Cir. 2008),
speculation in the contracting and legal community and McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. U.S. Dep’t of the Air
about the end of significant Exemption 4 withhold- Force, 375 F.3d 1182 (D.C. Cir. 2004), are themselves
© 2021 Thomson Reuters 5¶9 The Government Contractor®
explicitly based on National Parks. It seems likely Argus would render Exemption 4 protection easier
this relationship will be recognized under the new to establish.
interpretation, but this issue has not yet been tested. F
DOJ, for its part, has issued helpful statements on This Feature Comment was written for The Gov-
some of the flashpoints noted above, but these state- ernment Contractor by Stuart Turner, Amanda
ments have not been adopted across the Government, Sherwood and Kristen Ittig, members of Arnold
and have not been fully tested by the courts. & Porter’s Government contracts practice and
The resulting uncertainty means that Argus has resident in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. To-
in many cases increased, rather than lessened, the gether with their colleagues, they counsel and
burden on contractors seeking to protect their in- litigate on behalf of Government contractors,
formation. This is ironic given the expectations that including on FOIA matters.
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