This case study presents a detailed description of events covering a ten-year period from the filing of a freedom of information lawsuit in 1995 through final court judgment in 2005. The plaintiff is a resident of a city of 170,000 who successfully obtained a court judgment directing disclosure of diagrams of a biotechnology laboratory built near his home.

The case illustrates approaches to resolve the conflict between the desire of residents to know about nuisances near their homes and the desire of businesses to maintain confidentiality of sensitive information. It also provides a detailed example of the operation of Japan’s information request procedures and litigation process. The narrative and legal analysis rely heavily on original Japanese court documents.

Governments obtain large volumes of confidential information from business entities through the regulatory process. Sensitive to the importance of protecting trade secrets and other confidential information, drafters of freedom of information laws ordinarily provide an exemption for confidential business information. However, the interest in protecting business confidentiality sometimes conflicts with a strong public interest in disclosure of the same information. In such cases, the freedom of information laws of many countries provide for a balance of interests in order to determine whether information should be withheld or disclosed.

Japan’s national and local laws establish “public interest overrides” requiring that human health and certain other public interests prevail in cases of such conflict. This case study tells the story of one of the leading court precedents in Japan interpreting such a provision.