August 29, 2012

Ms. Zeena Angadicheril

Office of General Counsel

University of Texas System

201 West Seventh Street

Austin, Texas 78701-2902

OR2012-13715

Dear Ms. Angadicheril:

You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under the Public Information Act (the "Act"), chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned ID# 463587 (OGC# 144531).

The University of Texas at Austin (the "university") received a request for a specified RFP response. Although you take no position with respect to the public availability of the requested information, you state the proprietary interests of certain third parties might be implicated. Accordingly, you notified ADC Telecommunications, Inc. ("ADC"); Andrew Corp. ("Andrew"); and Crown Castle International Corp. ("Crown Castle") of the request and of their right to submit arguments to this office explaining why their information should not be released. ⁽¹⁾ See Gov't Code §§ 552.305 (permitting interested third parties to submit to attorney general reasons why requested information should not be released); see also Open Records Decision No. 542 (1990) (determining statutory predecessor to section 552.305 permits governmental body to rely on interested third party to raise and explain applicability of exception in certain circumstances). We have received comments submitted by Crown Castle. We have considered the arguments and reviewed the submitted information.

An interested third party is allowed ten business days after the date of its receipt of the governmental body's notice to submit its reasons, if any, as to why information relating to that party should not be released. See Gov't Code § 552.305(d)(2)(B). As of the date of this letter, we have not received arguments from ADC or Andrew. Thus, neither of these third parties has demonstrated it has a protected proprietary interest in any of the responsive information. See id. § 552.110(a)-(b); 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. Accordingly, the university may not withhold any of the responsive information on the basis of any proprietary interests ADC or Andrew may have in the information.

We note the submitted information is responsive to a previous request received by the university, in response to which this office issued Open Records Letter No. 2008-08708 (2008). In that ruling, we determined the university must withhold the information we marked in the bid proposal under section 552.110(a) of the Government Code. The remaining information was to be released to the requestor in accordance with copyright law. We have no indication there has been any change in the law, facts, or circumstances on which the previous ruling was based. Accordingly, the university must continue to rely on the ruling in Open Records Letter No. 2008-08708 as a previous determination and withhold or release the submitted information in accordance with that ruling. See Open Records Decision No. 673 (2001) (so long as law, facts, and circumstances on which prior ruling was based have not changed, first type of previous determination exists where requested information is precisely same information as was addressed in prior attorney general ruling, ruling is addressed to same governmental body, and ruling concludes information is or is not excepted from disclosure).

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,

Neal Falgoust

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

NF/ag

Ref: ID# 463587

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Mr. Coty M. Hylton

Crown Castle

890 Tasman Drive

Milpitas, California 95036

(w/o enclosures)

ADC Telecommunications, Inc.

P.O. Box 1101

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55440-1101

(w/o enclosures)

Andrew Corporation

10500 West 153^rd Street

Orland Park, Illinois 60462

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. We note you have also notified Texas A&M University of the request. See Gov't Code § 552.304 (interested party may submit comments stating why information should or should not be released.)

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