San Juan, PR – The Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC, by its Spanish acronym) in the San Juan Superior Court. The legal action follows the agency’s failure to provide public data on incentives, exemptions, and decrees granted to tourism-related businesses under Puerto Rico’s Incentives Code.
CPI journalist Damaris Suárez Lugo requested information on 59 tourism entities that received decrees from the DDEC’s Office of Incentives in 2024, as well as any other entities awarded incentives, exemptions, or decrees after that date. For each entity, she is seeking details including the name, type of tourism activity, location, amount of credit granted, and number of new jobs created, among other information. She also requested access to public documents such as files from beneficiary entities, annual reports submitted by exempt businesses, and agreed-upon procedure reports for each company.
“To independently monitor the government’s fiscal decisions and the return on investment for the island, the press needs access to data,” Suárez Lugo said. “In this case, we’re talking about revenue the government chose not to collect — an incentivized activity. We need to know what was achieved with that investment.”
The Access to Information Project of the Legal Aid Clinic at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico Law School, which is representing the CPI, sent a formal request for the data to the DDEC on July 29. The agency initially committed to respond by August 5 but later requested an extension until August 19, citing the volume of data and the need to analyze it.
When the extended deadline arrived, the agency denied the request and referred the journalist to a webpage she had already consulted — one that did not include the requested information.
While the DDEC did not deny having the data on tourism-related incentives, it argued —citing the Incentives Code— that it could not provide the information in the requested disaggregated format. However, the mandamus filed by the CPI contends that this position is both inaccurate and contrary to Article 8 of the Transparency Act (Act No. 141-2019), which requires that public information be delivered in the format requested. It also cites the law’s Interpretation Clause, which mandates that the statute be interpreted most liberally and favorably for the requester.
In previous litigation between the CPI and the DDEC, courts have ordered the release of public information in specific, disaggregated formats, even when the agency cited confidentiality provisions in the Incentives Code.
“What we’re requesting is basic information on the use of public funds through tax incentives in the tourism sector, information that should be readily available to the public,” said Carla Minet, the CPI’s executive director. “This isn’t private data; it’s an issue of transparency regarding who receives these benefits and under what conditions,” she said
The CPI is represented in this case by the organization’s legal counsel, Carlos F. Ramos Hernández, as well as Judith W. Berkan Barnett, Luis José Torres Asencio, and Steven P. Lausell Recurt of the Inter American University Legal Aid Clinic.
This translation was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and clarity.
