In the Matter of DLA Piper LLP

On December 13, 2021, the Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) granted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) appeal filed by DLA Piper (Appellant) concerning the response of the Oak Ridge Office (ORO) to its FOIA request for a documents regarding a technology transfer license between a DOE Contractor and a third party. ORO denied the request on the grounds that any relevant records would be contractor-owned pursuant to the Prime Contract between DOE and the Contractor and, therefore, the records would not be subject to the FOIA. On appeal, Appellant asserted that the relevant records were government-owned. The OHA determined that contractor-owned records may still fall within the scope of the FOIA and that ORO had not performed the necessary analysis to determine whether the relevant records were subject to the FOIA. The OHA determined that ORO's determination letter did not provide an adequate reason to deny the FOIA request. Accordingly, OHA granted the appeal and remanded the matter to ORO for further processing. OHA Case No. FIA-22-0001.