March 22, 2010

Ms. Jordan Hale

Assistant Attorney General

Assistant Public Information Coordinator

General Counsel Division

Office of the Attorney General

P.O. Box 12548

Austin, Texas 78711-2548

OR2010-03929

Dear Ms. Hale:

You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned ID# 375266 (PIR No. 10-27037).

The Office of the Attorney General (the "OAG") received a request for all vendor responses to RFI Number IV-D HCP-RFI#1 Class: 953 Item: 48, titled Health Care Program for Children in Title IV-D Cases, and a list of attendees at the RFI forum. The OAG released the list of attendees and the vendor response of the requestor's company. The OAG takes no position as to disclosure of the remaining information. Rather, because release of the remaining information may implicate the proprietary interests of Celtic Insurance Company and UnitedHealthcare, the OAG notified the companies of the request and of their right to submit arguments to this office as to why their information should not be released. Gov't Code § 552.305(d) (permitting third party with proprietary interest to submit to attorney general reasons why requested information should not be released); see also Open Records Decision No. 542 (1990) (determining that statutory predecessor to Gov't Code § 552.305 permits governmental body to rely on interested third party to raise and explain applicability of exception to disclosure under Public Information Act in certain circumstances).

An interested third party is allowed ten business days after the date of its receipt of the governmental body's notice under section 552.305(d) to submit its reasons, if any, as to why information relating to that party should be withheld from public disclosure. See Gov't Code § 552.305(d)(2)(B). As of the date of this letter, the companies have not submitted to this office any reasons explaining why their information should not be released. We thus have no basis to conclude release of the information will harm the companies' proprietary interests. See id. § 552.110; Open Records Decision Nos. 661 at 5-6 (1999) (to prevent disclosure of commercial or financial information, party must show by specific factual evidence, not conclusory or generalized allegations, that release of requested information would cause that party substantial competitive harm), 552 at 5 (1990) (party must establish prima facie case that information is trade secret), 542 at 3 (1990). Accordingly, the OAG may not withhold the companies' information based on any proprietary interests they may have. The OAG must release the information.

This letter ruling is limited to the particular information at issue in this request and limited to the facts as presented to us; therefore, this ruling must not be relied upon as a previous determination regarding any other information or any other circumstances.

This ruling triggers important deadlines regarding the rights and responsibilities of the governmental body and of the requestor. For more information concerning those rights and responsibilities, please visit our website at http://www.oag.state.tx.us/open/index_orl.php, or call the Office of the Attorney General's Open Government Hotline, toll free, at (877) 673-6839. Questions concerning the allowable charges for providing public information under the Act must be directed to the Cost Rules Administrator of the Office of the Attorney General, toll free, at (888) 672-6787.

Sincerely,

Yen-Ha Le

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

YHL/sdk

Ref: ID# 375266

Enc: Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

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