The Court of Appeal has weighed in on a dispute between Daedalus Prime and Xiaomi Technology regarding access to confidentiality clubs in UPC proceedings, with a decision that will be no doubt be received happily by those outside of UPC territories.
Under Rule 262A, parties to UPC proceedings can request that access to confidential documents and information be limited only to the small number of people necessary to guarantee a fair trial. In the Court of First Instance, access to confidential information presented in Xiaomi's statement of defence was limited to Daedalus' UPC representatives, the representatives' assistants, and Daedalus' managing director. However, a request to include two US attorneys was denied, under the reasoning that Daedalus' interest in exchanging information between UPC proceedings and parallel US proceedings did not justify expanding the confidentiality club.
However, on appeal, the Court of Appeal have found that the Court of First Instance were wrong to assume that Daedalus were requesting access for the US attorneys due to a desire to coordinate parallel litigations. In their appeal, Daedalus put forward that in actuality, due to their lack of an in-house legal team, Daedalus tended to use their US attorneys for legal matters, and the two attorneys in question were extremely familiar with the technology in question and were intended to provide technical expertise in the proceedings.
In assessing the appeal, the Court of Appeal confirmed that Rule 262 does not require that the parties given access to confidential information need to be employees of a party to their proceedings, nor their legal representatives before the UPC. Hence, the US attorneys were not precluded from access by virtue of their role, and in light of the value of their input to Daedalus, the Court of Appeal overturned the Court of First Instance's decision and granted the attorneys access into the confidentiality club. The UPC's willingness to accept attorneys outside of UPC territories will no doubt be good news for many, and we are pleased to see the UPC confirm this position.
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