Pacific Architects and Engineers Inc. v. United States Department of State James A. Baker, Iii, in His Capacity as Secretary of State

This case presents a reverse Freedom of Information Act question under 5 U.S.C. § 552 (“the FOIA”).

Pacific Architects and Engineers Inc. (“PAE”) seeks to prevent the State Department from disclosing the amount of PAE’s hourly charges to the government under its contract to provide maintenance and opera tions services. The State Department determined this information was not exempt from disclosure under the FOIA. Using the standard prescribed in 5 U.S.C. § 706 (2)(A) of the Administrative Procedure Act (whether agency action is “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with the law”), the district court upheld the State Department’s decision to release the information. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

FACTS

PAE provides maintenance and operations personnel services to the United States government at various locations around the world. In 1985, PAE was awarded a contract to furnish these services for a building which is part of the United States Embassy in Moscow. Under the contract, PAE agreed to supply maintenance, operations, repair and custodial personnel in a total of thirteen different job categories. PAE’s…