A landmark appellate court ruling has reignited debate over transparency standards for public-owned enterprises in Trinidad and Tobago, after judges overturned a lower court decision and ruled that state-run Heritage Petroleum Company Ltd unlawfully withheld employee salary and identity information from a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
The legal battle stretches back to 2018, when activist and former government minister Devant Maharaj submitted a formal FOI request seeking granular operational details from Heritage, including full names and exact remuneration packages for all employees. While the energy giant eventually released a limited set of data, it refused to disclose individual identities and specific salary figures, invoking a legal exemption that shields personal information from unreasonable public disclosure.
Maharaj contested this refusal through judicial review. Though the High Court acknowledged that Heritage had broken procedural rules by failing to provide sufficient justification for its refusal and skipping a required public interest balancing test mandated under Section 35 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), it ultimately ruled that the company had substantially met its legal obligations after releasing an anonymized “Annual Company Base Salary List”. This document only provided broad salary ranges grouped by job category, with no individual names or exact compensation details.
On appeal, Maharaj’s legal team, led by prominent senior counsel Anand Ramlogan, argued that the generalized salary range document was no substitute for the specific information Maharaj had requested, and that the High Court had misinterpreted the FOIA by accepting the incomplete disclosure as compliant. Heritage defended its position, maintaining that its response satisfied all statutory requirements.
Delivering the unanimous ruling from the three-judge panel consisting of Justices Nolan Bereaux, Mark Mohammed and James Aboud, Justice Bereaux rejected the High Court’s core reasoning, concluding that Heritage’s approach remained unlawful even after releasing the aggregated salary list. Justice Bereaux clarified that once a public body invokes the personal information exemption, FOIA explicitly requires a formal Section 35 balancing exercise: the body must weigh whether the public interest in disclosure of the requested information outweighs the potential harm to individual privacy. The appellate court confirmed that this mandatory assessment was never properly completed by Heritage.
“The respondent clearly did not wish to disclose the document,” Justice Bereaux wrote in the judgment, adding that if the refusal was rooted in public interest concerns, the company was legally obligated to articulate those concerns and provide formal justification for its decision.
The court also emphasized that the anonymized salary range document provided by Heritage was fundamentally different from the information Maharaj had requested. Where the original request sought individual-specific data, the company only offered generalized, aggregated ranges that failed to match the scope of the request. On this basis, the panel ruled the High Court erred in finding that the document met FOIA requirements or qualified as a permissible redacted disclosure under Section 16 of the Act.
In its final order, the Court of Appeal allowed Maharaj’s appeal, set aside the High Court’s original ruling, and remanded the request back to Heritage for reconsideration. The company is now required to complete the mandatory public interest analysis and re-evaluate the request in full compliance with the FOIA. The judgment also underscored the core purpose of the FOIA: to advance governmental transparency and accountability, and requires that any denial of disclosure by a public authority must be rigorously justified on statutory grounds.
In addition to the substantive ruling, the court ordered Heritage to cover all of Maharaj’s legal costs for both the High Court and appellate proceedings, with the total amount to be assessed by the court if the two parties cannot reach an agreement on the sum.