Below is a summary of the notable FOIA court decisions and news from last month, as well as a look ahead to FOIA events in April.
Court opinions
We identified 47 opinions in March, the largest number of opinions we have seen since March 2020 (52 opinions). Of note, in WP Co. LLC v. Nat’l Highway Traffic Safety Admin. (D.D.C. Mar. 25. 2026), which concerned records about crashes involving advanced driver-assistance systems, the court held that some data—like Tesla’s software-version and crash narrative information—could be withheld as confidential business information under Exemption 4, while other categories (including certain industry data and location details) required further scrutiny. Significantly, the court took a broad view of the foreseeable harm requirement in the Exemption 4 context, rejecting plaintiff’s argument that harm must come only from direct competitive use and recognizing reputational, inferential, and data-sharing harms.
Top news
* Four cabinet departments, Agriculture, DHS, DOJ, and HHS, failed to post their annual FOIA reports in March. The government has not publicly explained the reasons for the delays.
* The Department of Veterans Affairs, which posted its annual report on March 27th, allowed its request backlog to balloon 130 percent from FY 2024 to FY 2025.
* The Office of National Cyber Security, a component of the Executive Office of the President, established in 2021, proposed its first-ever FOIA and Privacy Act regulations on March 31st.
April calendar
Apr. 2: FOIA Advisory Committee meeting
Apr. 8: DOJ/OIP training, Introduction to the Freedom of Information Act
Apr. 20-22: Graduate School USA training, Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts Course
Apr. 21: D.C. Circuit oral argument, Samara Simmons v. Dep’t of State, No. 25-5176
Apr. 22: DOJ/OIP training, Processing a Request from Start to Finish
Apr. 24: Deadline for agencies to submit FY26 data for quarter 2