Court Orders NPS To Reveal NPS Concession Contract

A court recently rejected the National Park Service’s request to provide a redacted copy of an existing concession contract as part of an ongoing lawsuit rather than the entire document.  NPS had sought to withhold parts of the concession contract based on the assertion that they were confidential.  However, the court noted that the terms of existing concession contracts must be publicly disclosed in any solicitation for a new contract and that the concessioner had publicly disclosed its franchise fee.  Thus, the court concluded that there was little risk of disclosing commercially sensitive business and pricing information.