DG CLIMA contacts with Clifford Chance
Dear Climate Action (CLIMA),
Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting all documents, including notes of minutes, emails and other correspondence, relating to contacts between staff of DG CLIMA and staff of law firm Clifford Chance, between January 2008 and February 2013.
Yours faithfully,
Rachel Tansey
Dear Mr. Rowell,
Thank you for your e-mail dated 6 February, 2013. We hereby acknowledge
receipt of your application for access to documents, which was registered
on under reference number GestDem 2013/569.
In accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, your application
will be handled within 15 working days. In case this time limit needs to
be extended, you will be informed in due course.
Yours faithfully,
Veronika Hulkova
European Commission
Directorate-General for Climate Action
Access to Documents Team
This is a request for access to information under Article 15 of the
TFEU and, where applicable, Regulation 1049/2001 which has been
sent via the AsktheEU.org website.
Please kindly use this email address for all replies to this
request: [1][FOI #342 email]
If [2][DG CLIMA request email] is the wrong address for
information requests to Climate Action (CLIMA), please tell the
AsktheEU.org team on email [3][email address]
This message and all replies from Climate Action (CLIMA) will be
published on the AsktheEU.org website. For more information see our
dedicated page for EU public officials at
[4]http://www.asktheeu.org/en/help/officers
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References
Visible links
1. mailto:[FOI #342 email]
2. mailto:[DG CLIMA request email]
3. mailto:[AsktheEU.org contact email]
4. http://www.asktheeu.org/en/help/officers
Dear Ms. Tansey,
Thank you for your e-mail dated 6 February, 2013. We hereby acknowledge
receipt of your application for access to documents, which was registered
on under reference number GestDem 2013/569.
In accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, your application
will be handled within 15 working days. In case this time limit needs to
be extended, you will be informed in due course.
Yours faithfully,
Veronika Hulkova
European Commission
Directorate-General for Climate Action
Access to Documents Team
This is a request for access to information under Article 15 of the
TFEU and, where applicable, Regulation 1049/2001 which has been
sent via the AsktheEU.org website.
Please kindly use this email address for all replies to this
request: [2][FOI #342 email]
If [3][DG CLIMA request email] is the wrong address for
information requests to Climate Action (CLIMA), please tell the
AsktheEU.org team on email [4][email address]
This message and all replies from Climate Action (CLIMA) will be
published on the AsktheEU.org website. For more information see our
dedicated page for EU public officials at
[5]http://www.asktheeu.org/en/help/officers
-------------------------------------------------------------------
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[FOI #342 email]
2. mailto:[FOI #342 email]
3. mailto:[DG CLIMA request email]
4. mailto:[AsktheEU.org contact email]
5. http://www.asktheeu.org/en/help/officers
Dear Ms Tansey,
We refer to your email of 6 February 2013, in which you submit a request
for access to all documents, including notes of minutes, emails and other
correspondence, relating to contacts between staff of the
Directorate-General CLIMA and staff of law firm Clifford Chance, between
January 2008 and February 2013.
The description given in your application does not enable us to identify
concrete documents which would correspond to your request.
We therefore invite you, pursuant to Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No
1049/2001 regarding public access to documents, to provide us with more
detailed information on the documents which you seek to obtain, such as
the subject /scope of the request, references, dates or periods during
which the documents would have been produced, persons or bodies who
drafted the documents or any other relevant information which would enable
us to identify the documents falling under your requests.
This is a very broadly formulated request, which would require extensive
searches on different locations and it is not really feasible to retrieve
documents on these criteria. In particular, for a significant part of the
period covered by your request, there is no central electronic archiving
of correspondence. Therefore, searches in paper files would be necessary,
which would be very labour-intensive and time consuming. Furthermore,
correspondence with law firms may cover very different subjects and some
of it is likely to be confidential in nature.
Consequently, we are unable to handle your request in its present form. We
would kindly ask you to make a more targeted request.
The 15 working days the time limit for handling your application will
start running when we receive the requested clarification.
Thank you in advance for your understanding.
Yours sincerely,
Veronika Hulkova
European Commission
Directorate-General for Climate Action
Access to Documents Team
This is a request for access to information under Article 15 of the
TFEU and, where applicable, Regulation 1049/2001 which has been
sent via the AsktheEU.org website.
Please kindly use this email address for all replies to this
request: [1][FOI #342 email]
If [2][DG CLIMA request email] is the wrong address for
information requests to Climate Action (CLIMA), please tell the
AsktheEU.org team on email [3][email address]
This message and all replies from Climate Action (CLIMA) will be
published on the AsktheEU.org website. For more information see our
dedicated page for EU public officials at
[4]http://www.asktheeu.org/en/help/officers
-------------------------------------------------------------------
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[FOI #342 email]
2. mailto:[DG CLIMA request email]
3. mailto:[AsktheEU.org contact email]
4. http://www.asktheeu.org/en/help/officers
Dear Climate Action (CLIMA),
In accordance with your request for a more targeted access to documents request - due to the labour-intensive and time consuming nature of dealing with my request as previously formulated - I will narrow the time period and scope of my request as follows.
I will reduce the time span of my request to one year, from February 2012 to February 2013. I trust that this will address the issue of having no central electronic archiving of correspondence, for a significant part of the period covered by my original request (Jan 2008-Feb 2013).
Furthermore, since Clifford Chance is a large, multinational law firm, with branches all over the world, I will reduce the scope of my request to cover only correspondence between staff of DG CLIMA and three particular branches of Clifford Chance: the Brussels, Paris and London offices of Clifford Chance.
Yours faithfully,
Rachel Tansey
Dear Ms. Tansey,
With regard to your request of 6 February 2013, we would like to inform you that so far we were able to identify one email from Clifford Chance law office.
However, the email concerns a query on the interpretation of legal texts which was related to case where Clifford Chance was acting as legal counsel on behalf of a client.
We would like to clarify what were the documents you seek to obtain and whether such a document would meet your needs.
We are awaiting your answer as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely,
Veronika Hulkova
European Commission
Directorate-General for Climate Action
Access to Documents Team
This is a request for access to information under Article 15 of the
TFEU and, where applicable, Regulation 1049/2001 which has been
sent via the AsktheEU.org website.
Please kindly use this email address for all replies to this
request: [FOI #342 email]
If [DG CLIMA request email] is the wrong address for
information requests to Climate Action (CLIMA), please tell the
AsktheEU.org team on email [email address]
This message and all replies from Climate Action (CLIMA) will be
published on the AsktheEU.org website. For more information see our
dedicated page for EU public officials at
http://www.asktheeu.org/en/help/officers
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Ms.Tansey,
We refer to your request of 6 February 2013, specified on 8 February 2013,
registered under the above mentioned reference number by which you seek to
obtain all documents, including notes of minutes, emails and other
correspondence relating to contacts between staff of DG CLIMA and staff of
law firm Clifford Chance (London, Brussels and Paris offices) for the
period of February 2012 to February 2013.
Your application is currently being handled. However, we will not be in a
position to complete the handling of your application within the time
limit of 15 working days.. An extended time limit is needed as your
application concerns document that originates from the third party which
under the Art. 4(4) of the Regulation No. 1049/2001 has to be consulted.
Therefore, we have to extend the time limit for the reply to your request
in accordance with Article 7(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding
public access to documents. The new time limit expires on 22 March 2013.
We apologize for this delay and for any inconvenience this may cause.
Thanking you in advance for your cooperation.
Yours sincerely,
Veronika Hulkova
European Commission
Directorate-General for Climate Action
Access to Documents Team
Dear Climate Action (CLIMA),
I would like to reiterate, as per my original request of 6 February, that I seek all documents, including notes of minutes, emails and other correspondence, relating to contacts between staff of DG CLIMA and staff of law firm Clifford Chance, (clarified on 8 February to be the Brussels, Paris and London offices of Clifford Chance, between February 2012 to February 2013).
This does therefore include documents relating to the interpretation of legal texts, as per the email you refer to in your response of 28 February.
In short, yes, I do seek to obtain such a document.
Yours faithfully,
Rachel Tansey
Dear Ms. Tansey,
With reference to your request for access to documents of 6 February 2013,
specified on 8 February 2013 and registered as GestDem 2013-0987, please
find attached the document identified.
Please note that the document cannot be reproduced or disseminated for
commercial purposes without prior consent given by the Commission.
Please note that this letter is being sent via e-mail only.
Yours sincerely,
Veronika Hulkova
[1]cid:image001.png@01CE23E6.8063FDD0
European Commission
Directorate-General for Climate Action
Access to Documents Team