EIR/202600503224 · FOI/EIR · partially withheld
Biffa court case costs: EIR release
Information requested
The full costs to the government of the court case against Biffa, with a full breakdown of this.
Response
As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the Purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.
This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.
Request for the full costs incurred by the Scottish Government in relation to the recent legal case brought by Biffa Waste Services regarding the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS)
Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.
The total legal costs incurred by the Scottish Government in relation to the BIFFA Waste Services legal case, prior to 22 October 2025, can be found online via the following publications:
EIR Release 202400440418: Full costs of Deposit Return Scheme court case with Biffa EIR Release 202500490555: Costs of Deposit Return Scheme court case with Biffa
From the period 22 October 2025 to 26 January 2026 the total costs incurred by the Scottish Government in relation to the legal case with BIFFA Waste Services is £119,329.00.
It may help if I explain that legal advice may be sought in both internal and external capacities and that Scottish Government staff do not, as a matter of course, record the proportion of time spent providing advice on particular matters. It is therefore not possible to provide a further breakdown of the total cost and/or expenditure figure incurred by the Scottish Government with regards to legal advice received regarding the above noted legal Case.
About FOI
The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.
Contact Please quote the FOI reference Central Correspondence Unit Email: contactus@gov.scot Phone: 0300 244 4000 The Scottish Government St Andrew's House Regent Road Edinburgh EH1 3DG
Detected exemption language
We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA. This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes.
Attachments
No attachments found.