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Please quote the department above and our reference

21 November 2017

I refer to your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 per your email of 1 November 2017. The information you seek is in relation to the action A665/13 Niels Lockhart v The Scottish Legal Aid Board. You seek the following information: 1. 2. 3. 4.

How much has this case cost SLAB Who is representing SLAB What (does) the case relate to What sum is involved/sought

I confirm we hold the information you seek and now provide it as follows: 

A665/13 Niels Lockhart v The Scottish Legal Aid Board was a court action raised by Mr Lockhart at the Court of Session in which he sought payment of damages of £100,000 from SLAB. The court action has since been concluded.



You will recall that in early 2010 you submitted an FOI request to us, and that on 16 March 2010 we responded to your request by forwarding to you a report in relation to Mr Lockhart. This release of information to you was alleged by Mr Lockhart to be a breach of confidentiality by SLAB. SLAB defended the action.



SLAB was represented by in-house solicitors, and instructed counsel, John MacGregor, advocate. The costs incurred by SLAB were: Counsels fees Court dues Printing cost of court documents Total

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£2,100.00 £202.00 £92.07 £2,394.07

The court action was terminated in 2016 by agreement. Decree of absolvitor was granted in favour of SLAB together with an order of expenses in favour of SLAB in

the sum of £1,750. No monies were found payable, or paid, to Mr Lockhart by SLAB. I trust this deals with your request. Lest it does not, I enclose details about your right to request a review of this decision and the Board’s complaints procedure. Yours faithfully,

Marie-Louise Fox Director of Operations

Your right to request a review of decision If you are dissatisfied with the way in which we have handled your request for information, you may ask us to review our decision. A request that we review our decision should be made in writing within 40 working days of the date of this letter or, if we have not responded to your request, within 40 days of the date by which we should have responded (that would normally be 20 days after receiving your request). We will review our decision and tell you the outcome within 20 working days of receiving your request. If, having done so, you remain dissatisfied, you may ask the Scottish Information Commissioner to review our decision. You must submit your request in writing to the Commissioner within 6 months of first receiving notice about the matter you are complaining about. The Commissioner will not deal with an application unless the Board’s review process has been used and exhausted – in other words, until you have asked us to review our decision and you are not satisfied with our response or have not received a response within 20 working days of your request. The Commissioner's contact details are: The Scottish Information Commissioner Kinburn Castle Doubledykes Road St Andrews Fife KY16 9DS Telephone: 01334 464610 Fax: 01334 464611 Website www.itspublicknowledge.info E-mail: [email protected]