As part of a procurement, tenderers submitted samples of the product subject to procurement. The procuring authority conducted an ocular inspection of the samples. The result of the inspection was recorded in a document. Access to this document was requested, but the request was refused. The decision was appealed to the administrative court of appeal, which held that the document was not official since the procurement was subject to an ongoing review process.
Case-related documents created within a public authority that are not dispatched are, pursuant to the Freedom of the Press Act, drawn up and thus official when the matter to which they relate has been finally settled by the authority. The Supreme Administrative Court considers that a matter is finally settled when an authority disposes of it, which generally is manifested by the authority taking a final decision. What subsequently takes place in regards to the matter, e.g. an appeal process, therefore has no bearing on the question of when the decision-making authority has finally settled the case as it is concerned. This also applies to procurement matters, which means that such a matter is considered finally settled when a contract award notice has been issued.
A contract award notice had been issued at the time of the appealed decision regarding access to official documents, which means that the procurement at that time hade been finally settled in the sense referred to in the Freedom of the Press Act. This means that the requested document is official and thus to be released unless there is an obstacle due to secrecy. The case has been remanded to the decision-making authority for assessment of the question of secrecy.