The French company defendants had been ordered to disclose documents which they said might expose them to criminal prosecution in France. They now appealed.
Held: The court was not obliged to make use of the Council Regulation. Orders for discovery of a document in this court (or for inspection of a document already disclosed) are procedural in nature and the law governing them is the lex fori, ie the law of England and Wales. The fact that a party objects to disclosure or inspection on the ground that to comply with such an order would put the party at risk of prosecution under a foreign law provides no defence to the making of the order. The English court retains jurisdiction under its local law to make such an order although it has a discretion whether to do so in the particular circumstances. The English court is entitled to take into account the risk of prosecution. In the two cases under consideration the judges who made the orders requiring disclosure had done so having found that a prosecution was highly unlikely.
Judges:
Laws, Rimder, Beatson LJJ
Citations:
[2013] EWCA Civ 1234, [2014] Lloyd’s Rep FC 175, [2014] UKCLR 263, [2014] 1 WLR 4383, [2013] WLR(D) 401
Links:
Statutes:
Council Regulation (EC) No 1206/2001, Civil Procedure Rules 18 31
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Property Alliance Group Ltd v The Royal Bank of Scotland Plc ChD 19-Feb-2015
The claimant said that interest rate manipulation by the defendant bank had caused it losses in interest rate derivatives and SWAP agreements. In the course of that the claimants sought disclosure of internal documents. The defendants resisted . .
See Also – Secretary of State for Health and Others v Servier Laboratories Ltd and Others ChD 31-Jul-2014
The claimant sought damages, alleging that the defendants had breached competition law in the arrangements for sales of drugs for the treatment of heart disease. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Litigation Practice, European
Updated: 25 March 2022; Ref: scu.516955
