You may tell a participant that:

(a) We may exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) a trade secret or commercial and financial information that a participant provides after the award, if the information is privileged or confidential information. The DoD Component that receives the FOIA request will review the information in accordance with DoD procedures at 32 CFR 286.23(h) (and any DoD Component supplementary procedures) to determine whether it is privileged or confidential information under the FOIA exemption at 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(4), as implemented by the DoD at 32 CFR 286.12(d).

(b) If the participant also provides information in the course of a competition prior to award, there is a statutory exemption for five years from FOIA disclosure requirements for certain types of information submitted at that time (see § 37.420).