Page:FOMBPR v. CPI.pdf/1

(Slip Opinion)

In 2016, Congress passed the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), 48 U. S. C. §2101 et seq., to deal with a fiscal crisis in Puerto Rico brought about by soaring public debt. PROMESA establishes a system for overseeing Puerto Rico’s finances, while also enabling the Commonwealth to gain bankruptcy protections similar to those available under the Federal Bankruptcy Code. See ''Financial Oversight and Management Bd. for Puerto Rico v. Aurelius Investment, LLC'', 590 U. S. ___, ___. The statute creates the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico—petitioner in this case—as an “entity within the territorial government” of Puerto Rico. §2121(c)(1). Under PROMESA, the Board approves the Commonwealth’s fiscal plans and budgets, supervises its borrowing, and represents Puerto Rico in so-called Title III cases—judicial debt-restructuring proceedings modeled on federal bankruptcy proceedings. Beginning in 2016, respondent Centro de Periodismo Investigativo, Inc. (CPI)—a nonprofit media organization that has reported on Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis—asked the Board to release various documents relating to its work. When CPI’s requests went unfulfilled, it sued the Board in the United States District Court for Puerto Rico, citing a provision of the Puerto Rican Constitution interpreted to guarantee a right of access to public records. The Board moved to dismiss on sovereign immunity grounds, but the District Court rejected that defense. The First Circuit affirmed. The court began by citing Circuit precedent that Puerto Rico enjoys sovereign immunity, and it assumed without deciding that the Board shares in that immunity. But it then held that PROMESA—particularly its jurisdictional provision, Section