* Veolia loses High Court waste case

Environmental campaigners are celebrating after a High Court judge ruled that waste firm Veolia Environmental Services had to disclose commercial information about its £850 million PFI waste contract with Nottinghamshire County Council. The case could set an important precedent to enable members of the public to ask local authorities to see every invoice issued for its waste services, including waste gate fees. It could also allow waste firms to show their sub-contractors and rival firms their profit margins and waste contracts.
The matter reached the High Court in London in August after Veolia obtained an interim injunction to stop Nottinghamshire County Council’s decision to release details of the waste PFI contract following a request for the information by local resident and waste campaigner Shlomo Dowen. Veolia argued that it had developed a sophisticated and competitive formula for contract and tender fees and charges, and that the company’s financial interests would be damaged if its sub-contractors and rival firms obtained the figures. But Mr Justice Cranston, the judge hearing the case, said that “other interested persons may wish to consider questions such as whether sums purportedly paid under a contract are properly due under that contract”. And he said that Section 15(1) of the Audit Commission 1998 Act “enables an interested party to inspect and copy certain documents related to the accounts of the council”. Mr Justice Cranston ruled that Dowen’s status as a tax payer meant that he had a right to see that his money was well spent.