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1. Any information which is by nature confidential (for example, because its disclosure would be of significant competitive advantage to a competitor or would have a significantly adverse effect upon a person supplying the information or upon a person from whom the person supplying the information has acquired the information) or which is provided on a confidential basis by parties to an investigation shall, if good cause is shown, be treated as such by the authorities.

2. Interested parties providing confidential information shall be required to provide non-confidential summaries thereof. Those summaries shall be in sufficient detail to permit a reasonable understanding of the substance of the information submitted in confidence. In exceptional circumstances, such parties may indicate that such information is not capable of being summarised. In such exceptional circumstances, a statement of the reasons why summarisation is not possible shall be provided.

3. If it is considered that a request for confidentiality is not warranted and if the supplier of the information is either unwilling to make the information available or to authorise its disclosure in generalised or summary form, such information may be disregarded unless it can be satisfactorily demonstrated from appropriate sources that the information is correct. Requests for confidentiality shall not be arbitrarily rejected.

4. This Article shall not preclude the disclosure of general information by the Union authorities, and, in particular, of the reasons on which decisions taken pursuant to this Regulation are based, or disclosure of the evidence relied on by the Union authorities insofar as is necessary to explain those reasons in court proceedings. Such disclosure shall take into account the legitimate interest of the parties concerned that their business secrets not be divulged.

5. The Commission and the Member States, including the officials of either, shall not reveal any information received pursuant to this Regulation for which confidential treatment has been requested by its supplier, without specific permission from that supplier. Exchanges of information between the Commission and Member States, or any internal documents prepared by the authorities of the Union or the Member States, shall not be divulged except as specifically provided for in this Regulation.

6. Information received pursuant to this Regulation shall be used only for the purpose for which it was requested.