JAYSON AMSTER v. RUSHERN L. BAKER
Court of Special Appeals, Woodward, Aug. 30, 2016,
MPIA – Private lease was not subject to MPIA request where it contains confidential commercial information, was provided to government voluntarily, and was not customarily released to the public.

Vacated by CoA

The Court differentiates between records maintained/developed by the government and records voluntarily provided to them, pushing for disclosure in the former case but not the latter

GP 4-335 requires an MPIA request be denied where:

A custodian shall deny inspection of the part of a public record that contains any of the following information provided by or obtained from any person or governmental unit:
(1) a trade secret;
(2) confidential commercial information;
(3) confidential financial information; or
(4) confidential geological or geophysical information.

The Court here adopts the DC Circuit’s Critical Mass opinion and applies it to GP 4-335.

The test, as adopted, requires:
(1) the record must contain confidential commercial or financial information that was
(2) voluntarily provided to the government and
(3) not customarily released to the public by the private party.
This test “was an objective one, with the agency carrying the burden of proving the provider’s custom of nondisclosure.”