Dear European Anti-Fraud Office,

Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:

A list of all investigations OLAF has conducted against companies contracted by the European Union for providing security services, for example for EU delegations abroad or as part of the Common Security and Defence Policy, between 2015 and 2021.

Yours faithfully,

Maximilian Henning

Dear [email address],

my postal address is as follows:

Maximilian Henning
Cava de San Miguel 8
4º centro
28005 Madrid
Spain

Yours sincerely,

Maximilian Henning

Dear [email address],

Thank you for your March 17 reply to my February 23 access to documents request. I had requested:

"A list of all investigations OLAF has conducted against companies contracted by the European Union for providing security services, for example for EU delegations abroad or as part of the Common Security and Defence Policy, between 2015 and 2021."

You replied that this request could not be granted since OLAF does not hold such a list. You elaborated on court rulings regarding "normal or routine" searches in authorities' database, the results of which are considered documents falling under the right to access documents. You also wrote that the "routine" character is determined by whether such a document has been made available to end users.

Since I don't immediately want to take the step of filing a confirmatory application, I was wondering whether it would perhaps be possible to find search criteria for OLAF's OCM database that fall under this routine character. For example, I noticed in a prior access to documents request (https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/olaf...), you granted a requester access to a list of investigations OLAF had conducted that included the data field "Recipient of recommendation". Would an OCM search for investigations begun 2015-2021 for which the recipient was the European Union External Action Service be considered a routine search? If yes, I would be glad if you could consider my request to concern this document. If not, I would be glad about any further information you might be willing to provide regarding possibilities to access the database.

Yours sincerely,

Maximilian Henning

Dear European Anti-Fraud Office,

Please pass this on to the person who reviews confirmatory applications.

I am filing the following confirmatory application with regards to my access to documents request 'Investigations into EU private security contractors 2015-2021'.

On February 23, I had requested “a list of all investigations OLAF has conducted against companies contracted by the European Union for providing security services, for example for EU delegations abroad or as part of the Common Security and Defence Policy, between 2015 and 2021.”

On March 17, you replied to my request, stating that OLAF does not hold such a list in its OCM database. You elaborated on court rulings regarding “normal or routine” searches in authorities’ database, the results of which are considered documents falling under the right to access documents. You also wrote that the “routine” character is determined by whether such a document has been made available to end users.

On March 18, I sent a further message inquiring about whether you could further specify what search terms in the OCM database could be considered a routine search. I did not receive a reply to this message.

I would like to ask you to reconsider your decision regarding my access to documents request for the following reason: Assistance on specifying my request was not provided according to Regulation 1049/2011.
You stated in your reply that the information requested by me is stored in OLAF’s database OCM. The question of whether it can be subject to my access for documents request therefore seems to be a question of performing a search in OCM.

As I am not familiar with the operation of OCM, I cannot formulate my request in such a way that it conforms with the search capabilities of the database. In your reply to my request, you stated that “the information requested by you, if it exist, would be located in different documents, registered in different files of different investigations carried out by different investigators independently.” You did not elaborate on the search capabilities of OCM in a way that assisted me in specifying my request.

Following your negative reply to my initial request, I sent another message requesting assistance on clarifying my request. In this message, I inquired about information about how OCM can be searched and offered to clarify my request in a way that would conform with OCM’s capabilities. Since I did not receive a reply to this message, I was unable to clarify my request.

I am still willing to clarify my request in such a way that it conforms with the search capabilities of OCM, which would allow you to perform a routine search, the results of which could, as a document, be identified as the subject of my request. I would be willing to consider several alternatives to my original request:

- As already proposed, earlier documents released by OLAF (https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/olaf...) as well as OLAF’s yearly reports (https://ec.europa.eu/anti-fraud/about-us...) seem to indicate that investigation files contain information on the recipients of recommendations. Since I am primarily interested in investigations concerning the European Union External Action Service, I would be willing to specify my request to concern a list of investigations for which the recipient was the EEAS.
- Alternatively, I would also be willing to specify my request to concern a list of investigations concerning some private security companies, for example containing one of their names: Page Protective Services, GardaWorld, Amarante International, G4S and Securitas.
- Another alternative would be a list of investigations concerning events outside of the EU, since I am interested in contracts given out by the EEAS to private security companies regarding EU delegations outside of Union territory.

All of these would be for a timespan from 2015 to 2021. Alternatively, I would be glad about any further assistance you could provide me on specifying my request to conform with the search capabilities of OCM.

A full history of my request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/inves...

Yours faithfully,

Maximilian Henning