In November 2025, the Upper Tribunal Judge Butler handed down her decision in Brida v Information Commissioner and Financial Ombudsman Service (UA-2024-001815-GIA), in which Stephen Kosmin successfully acted for the Financial Ombudsman Service. This decision provides welcome analysis of s.12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“FOIA”).
The appeal concerned a request by Mr Brida to the Financial Ombudsman Service for 658 full guidance notes and 302 summary documents. The Financial Ombudsman Service refused to disclose the requested information, relying on s.12 FOIA on the basis that the cost of compliance exceeded the relevant statutory limit. Mr Brida initially complained to the Information Commissioner, and later issued an information rights appeal, in respect of that refusal. In his submissions to both the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal, Mr Brida alleged that around 25 alternative – often technologically innovative – methodologies should have been regarded as available to the Financial Ombudsman Service, by which it could have responded to the request without exceeding the relevant cost thresholds for the purposes of s.12 FOIA. The First-tier Tribunal dismissed Mr Brida’s appeal: see Brida v Information Commissioner and Financial Ombudsman Service [2024] UKFTT 00876 (GRC). Mr Brida sought permission to appeal.
In the course of dismissing Mr Brida’s application for permission to appeal, Upper Tribunal Judge Butler clarified the correct legal test under s.12 FOIA. Accepting Stephen Kosmin’s submissions for the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Upper Tribunal clarified that “non-financial matters, such as compliance with FOS’s governance procedures” could be taken into account when assessing the reasonableness of a public authority’s costs estimate: see [64-65]. The Upper Tribunal then concluded that, even if there might have been alternative methodologies for retrieving information responsive to Mr Brida’s request, deploying those alternative methodologies would have required the Financial Ombudsman Service to follow an extensive governance and testing process. The Upper Tribunal held at [69] that “it was not reasonable to expect the Second Respondent to lavish ingenuity on discovering some alternative quicker methods not currently available to it, or to configure its software or download and install new software” (see also [101]).
Stephen Kosmin was instructed by Nuara Choudury and James Stewart at the Financial Ombudsman Service.
A copy of the decision can be accessed here.
