Cineword Rent Arrears (FOI)

Request

Please advise how much was waived from Cineworld's rent arrears by the publicly owned The States of Jersey Development Company Limited (“SoJDC”) and which politician, if any, gave the go ahead for this decision?

Response 

The amount that was waived from Cineworld’s rent arrears by The States of Jersey Development Company Limited (“SoJDC”) is considered to be commercially sensitive information, therefore Article 33(b) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

Article 33(b) is a qualified exemption; therefore, a public interest test has been applied and is shown at the end of this response.

No Politician “gave the go ahead for this decision” since it was a commercial decision for the Board of SoJDC considering the best interests of the company and the Island.

Article applied 

Article 33 – Commercial interests.

Information is qualified exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes a trade secret; or

(b) its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information).

Public interest test

It is in the public interest to be made aware of any rent that has been waived by SoJDC in relation to the Cineworld property.

However, the release of the rental details could potentially disadvantage SoJDC’s ability to retain commercial advantage in any future rental negotiations with other of its commercial tenants.

Therefore, it is considered that the likely prejudice to SoJDC, should this information be released, outweighs the argument that the release is in the public interest.