THE English High Court has ordered the European Commission to disclose its unredacted air cargo cartel decision to a select group of claimants' advisers in follow-up to damages proceedings, reports London's International Law Office.

"This is a welcome development for claimants," said their lawyers James Flett or Peter Scott at London law firm Norton Rose Fulbright

"In the air cargo case, four years had elapsed since the commission had reached its infringement finding. The High Court held that this delay was unacceptable and that the commission's prolonged 'molasses like approach' to confidentiality representations was causing unreasonable delays to the claimants' claims," said the lawyers.

In a November 9, 2010, a three-page press release the commission announced that it had fined 11 air cargo carriers a total of EUR799,445,000 (US$893.9 million) for operating a worldwide cartel which affected air cargo services within the European Economic Area.

Claims were brought by 565 claimants seeking compensation for losses that they claimed to have suffered as a result of the cartel.

The commission does not publish infringement decisions until the parties have had the opportunity to request the redaction of confidential information.

"In this case, four years after the decision was reached, the commission still had not published a non-confidential version," said the Norton Rose Fulbright legal team.

"At the request of one of the parties, the commission wrote to the High Court on April 23, 2014 explaining that it could not publish the decision until confidentiality claims were addressed.

"To the court's apparent displeasure, the commission gave no indication of when this process would be finished," they said.

Claimants applied again and the commission issued a decision that was so redacted that it was of no use. The claimants then applied for the court to consider the appropriateness of the redactions.

The High Court was highly critical of the commission's "one speed molasses-like approach" to addressing confidentiality representations and publishing its decisions," said the lawyers.

"It was particularly concerned that the commission was delaying follow-on proceedings and had provided no indication of when the decision would be published." they said.

The claimants requested that the court read the decision and decide which sections of it should be redacted, but the court felt itself incompetent to do so given the detailed knowledge needed to edit the decision properly.

Instead, the court held that under English law disclosure of an unredacted version of the decision can be made to a tightly prescribed confidentiality ring.

The defendants argued that disclosure the decision would run contrary to EU obligations "not to disclose information of the kind covered by professional secrecy".

The court has granted the defendants' permission to appeal and the matter will likely be brought before the Court of Appeal.