Financial support provided to GFG Alliance: FOI release

Information requested

1. Did Sanjeev Gupta provide any financial statements proving his need for a Scottish government loan in 2017 through Scottish Enterprise for £7m?

2. Did GFG Alliance receive Covid loans from the Scottish Government to assist the business in 2020-21? If yes- how much?

3. We are looking for all correspondence, dates, memos, emails, letters and unofficial notes between Sanjeev Gupta and the Scottish Government regarding financial aid for GFG Alliance from 2019- December 2020?

Response

1. The Scottish Government has not loaned any money to Sanjeev Gupta. Scottish Enterprise made a loan to Liberty Steel in 2017 and any financial statements relating to that loan are not held by the Scottish Government but may be held by Scottish Enterprise.

As such, this is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not hold any information that would fall within the scope of your request. However as Scottish Enterprise may hold this information we would like to advise that a request for this can be made to them under the Freedom of Information Scotland Act by emailing pressoffice@scotent.co.uk.

2. The Scottish Government has made no Covid loans to the GFG Alliance in the years 2020 and 2021.

3. The Scottish Government has provided no financial aid for GFG Alliance in years 2019 and 2020.

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