Section 20.61 - Trade secrets and commercial or financial information which is privileged or confidential

1 Analyses of this regulation by attorneys

  1. SCOTUS Makes it Easier for Government to Withhold Commercial or Financial Information

    Hyman, Phelps & McNamara, P.C.Anne K. WalshJune 26, 2019

    There is no requirement for showing any harm from the disclosure of that information, whether substantial or negligible. Although FDA regulation largely tracks the broad definition of confidential commercial or financial information (“valuable data or information which is used in one’s business and is of a type customarily held in strict confidence or regarded as privileged and not disclosed to any member of the public by the person to whom it belongs”), 21 C.F.R. § 20.61, FDA may need to scrub the reference to “competitive harm” in discussing its assessment of whether to provide notice to the submitter of commercial or financial information about a request for that information.Further, the Court’s decision points toward adoption of a single standard for determining whether information qualifies as confidential, thereby eradicating the esoteric distinction between information that is required to be submitted (which was governed by the “substantial competitive harm” standard elucidated in National Parks) and information that is voluntarily submitted (which was governed by the less demanding standard elucidated in Critical Mass Energy Project v. NRC, i.e., “information qualifies as confidential ‘if it is of a kind that would customarily not be released to the public by the person from whom it was obtained’”). While declining to articulate that single standard, the Court noted that it could not “discern a persuasive reason to afford the same statutory te