By Toby McIntosh
A major bank in the Philippines has successfully used a confidentiality agreement with the International Finance Corporation to prevent the disclosure of a consultant’s recommendations of remedial actions regarding problems with 10 controversial coal-fired power plants.
The case indicates that transparency at the IFC is not solely determined by its access to information policy, but also by the strictures of secret confidentiality agreements.
In 2022, the IFC ombudsman found that the IFC had violated its environmental and social protection policies when it financed the construction of coal-fired power plants in The Philippines. In response, the IFC Board ordered a Management Action Plan (MAP) and a consultant was hired to propose mitigation measures.
The draft findings by the consultant were shared with the civil society groups that had raised questions about the projects in the first place. The groups expected that the consultant’s final findings, 10 “Gap Analysis” reports, would be made public.
But the final reports were kept secret.
So a nongovernmental organization, Inclusive Development International (IDI), requested the executive summaries of the consultant’s reports, using the IFC Access to Information Policy (AIP).
Access Request Denied
The request was denied — initially, on first appeal and recently at the final appeal stage, by a three-person Independent Appeals Panel.
The IFC justified nondisclosure with several rationales. It cited an exemption to protect commercially sensitive information. But more significantly, the IFC cited confidentiality agreements with the bank, the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC).
The confidentiality agreements allowed RCBC to completely prevent publication of the consultant’s conclusions. The bank rebuffed IFC requests to disclose even parts of the consultant’s conclusions.
And not only did RCBC object, it threatened to sue if the findings were made public. So the IFC added another rationale for nondisclosure. It cited an exemption in the access policy, Paragraph 11(l), which says the IFC “may decline to disclose information if such disclosure might prejudice an investigation or any legal or regulatory proceedings, or subject IFC to an undue risk of litigation.”
“A Mockery” Says Requester
“It makes a mockery of the policies approved by the World Bank board and its entire accountability system if all Management needs to do to subvert it is to sign NDAs [non-disclosure agreements] with their clients,” said David Pred, President and Executive Director of IDI, the requesting party.
“At the end of the day, it is the impacted communities who suffer from the denial of remedy, while the offenders continue with business as usual and their reputations intact,” he said.
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Confidential Agreement Gave Bank the Last Word
The language of the confidentiality agreement gave the RCBC a veto on disclosure, according to both the panel and the IFC AIP advisor.
(Although the confidentiality agreements were shared with the appeals panel, they remain are nonpublic. No operative language was cited by the IFC or the panel.)
The appeals panel stressed that RCBC “relatedly refused to consent” to “any disclosure of information, even if redacted.”
The decision states:
- The AIP Panel consulted with IFC and reviewed several confidential documents in determining whether the AIP Advisor’s decision of non-disclosure was made on a reasonable basis. The consultation and documents review revealed that there is a confidentiality agreement between RCBC and IFC pre-dating these projects; there are existing confidentiality agreements between the consultant that prepared the reports and both IFC and RCBC; and the final Gap Analysis was marked as confidential. In all cases, RCBC must consent to any disclosure of information, even if redacted, and RCBC has repeatedly refused to consent.
Similarly the AIP advisor, Elena Bourganskaia, IFC’s Vice President, Strategy and Operations Support, put the onus on RCBC.
She described, “Specifically, four sets of market standard confidentiality obligations between, respectively: (i) IFC and RCBC, (ii) RCBC and its sub-borrowers (whose projects were subject to consultant’s gap analysis), (iii) RCBC and the consultant, and (iv) IFC and the consultant.”
Bourganskaia wrote, “RCBC asserts that any disclosure of the information requested may therefore expose it to legal action by its clients….”
She said the IFC “has submitted multiple formal and informal requests for RCBC consent to disclose the full, final executive summaries and RCBC has consistently been unwilling to provide such consent.” The IFC also asked RCBC to consider redacted disclosure, even providing a sample summary.
However, she reported: “RCBC has rejected the option of redactions in writing and reiterated its concerns around confidentiality matters. Its unwillingness to consent to disclosure extends to any form of the final executive summaries, including any redacted versions.”
RCBC’s legal threat was explicit. Bourganskaia said, “Consistent with its past correspondence to IFC’s Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, RCBC has made it clear in writing that it will take all appropriate actions, including legal measures, in respect of any violation of its prohibition on disclosure.”
“If IFC still proceeds to disclose the Information,” she wrote, it could be in breach of contract with RCBC and liable for unliquidated damages in the US and/or Philippines courts.” She also noted that RCBC might face possible liability from clients, shareholders and the regulator. “The likelihood of litigation against IFC increases if RCBC is subjected to the aforementioned claims and consequent liability.”
Case closed.
Documents
The March 16, 2026, appeals panel decision
IDI’s appeal to Independent Appeals Panel
The Oct. 11, 2025, decision by the AIP advisor
The IFC rejection of IDI’s initial request
All IFC appeals decisions are posted here.
CAO’s investigation report and press release from 2022 about non-compliance with respect to four IFC Projects with RCBC (Project Numbers: #30235, #32853, #34115 and #37489).
The CAO’s Jan. 17, 2025, Monitoring Report states that “these reports should be shared with the complainants” as the draft reports were and notes that the “reports are a major output of the MAP and were prepared using primarily public environmental information and consultation.”
IDI “supports communities around the world to defend their rights and resources in the face of harmful corporate activities and internationally financed development projects…” It is based in Ashville, N.C., and made the information request with support from along with two other groups, the Philippines Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ) and Recourse. The groups had represented complainants in the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) Investigation of IFC Environmental and Social Performance in Relation to Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation in the Philippines (IFC Projects #30235, #32853, #34115 and #37489).
Other Appeals Rejected
Other requests from documents from the IFC also have failed on appeal.
The IFC has:
- Refused to release a “loan agreement,” a key document that describes what a loan beneficiary must do.
- Refused to release an independent review that cleared the IFC of obstructing an internal investigation into a controversial education loan. (See EYE article, Oct. 17, 2025.)
- Refused to release its responses to requests made under the AIP. (See EYE article, Oct. 2, 2025.)
Overall Critique of IFC Access Policy
The IFC is engaged in a major review of its Performance Standards, including the AIP.
An October submission by NGOs was critical of the access policy. “The IFC’s ATI Policy falls well short of international standards and better practice among IFIs in a number of areas,” said Toby Mendel, Executive Director of the Centre for Law and Development.
Key recommendations in the submission include:
- The list of exceptions should be substantially revised so that it aligns with international standards, including by subjecting all exceptions to a harm test, and by making the public interest override mandatory instead of discretionary and applying it to all exceptions.
- The scope of the policy should be broadened to include all information and documents held by the IFC, instead of being limited to information “concerning its activities”, which has been interpreted restrictively.
- A number of improvements to the procedures for making and processing requests should be introduced to make this a user-friendly system.
- Proactive disclosure practices should be improved to ensure the timely and complete provision of information of key public interest.
