On 28 April 2017, the General Court of the European Union upheld an action concerning transparency brought by an operator of games of chance against the European Commission, supported by the European Parliament, the Council and Poland. Cf. Judgment of 28 April 2017. Also cf. article in Gazeta Prawna (behind paywall). The General Court confirmed that the Commission does not have competence to decide about a request for documents filed with a Member State and forwarded to the Commission under Art. 5 of regulation 1049/2001, if the request does not actually concern documents originating from an EU institution. The General Court’s judgment blocks the future use of the forwarding mechanism to circumvent liberal Member State rules on access to documents by requesting the Commission to handle the request for access.

The applicant was represented in the General Court by Piotr Hoffman.