2026-02-24 - CoA - Gowling WLG (applicant) in Sumi Agro Limited and Sumi Agro Europe Limited v. Syngenta Limited - UPC-COA-0000010/2026

ENGLISH: "-Reasoned requests to the Registry for written pleadings and evidence (access to documents pursuant to R. 262.1(b) RoP), lodged at the Court of First Instance, shall be made to the relevant Division. Similarly, reasoned requests for written pleadings and evidence, lodged at the Court of Appeal, shall be made to the Court of Appeal. -The provision that a decision will be taken by the judge-rapporteur after consulting the parties (R. 262.1(b) RoP) ensures that the judge adjudicating on access is familiar with the case file, separately for each instance. -Such separate responsibility for the Court of First Instance and Court of Appeal is in line with the provisions on the court files in the Statute and the Registry Rules. The Statute makes a clear distinction between the register kept by the Registrar (Art. 23 UPCS) and the sub-registries kept by the Deputy-Registrar (Art. 25 UPCS). The latter concerns the records of the cases before the Court of First Instance. In accordance with this distinction, the RegR provide that the Deputy-Registrar shall keep the “case files of proceedings before the CFI” (R. 56 RegR), which include all pleadings and documents filed with the Court of First Instance (R. 59 RegR), and shall ensure access to such Court of First Instance case files by third parties (R. 66 RegR). For the management of case files before the Court of Appeal, the Registrar shall have those duties (R. 73 RegR). -Re-lodging on appeal of documents lodged at the Court of First Instance is L112normally not called for since the Court of Appeal shall consult the file of the proceedings before the Court of First Instance pursuant to R. 222.1 RoP. Such consultation does not generate any copies of the documents into the file of the proceedings before the Court of Appeal. -If a party, for reasons of its own, re-lodges documents on appeal, this not only represents additional work for parties and the Court alike, but it also means that members of the public can chose to request access to those documents from the Court of First Instance, the Court of Appeal, or if there is reason for it, both. -A request for written pleadings and evidence must be specified and cannot be made in terms which would require the Court to search and select documents based on relevance criteria set up by the requesting party. "

Companion decision to UPC_CoA_9/2026 (Boehringer/Zentiva) applying the same R.262.1(b) public access framework. Gowling WLG granted access to written pleadings in the Sumi Agro v Syngenta appeal proceedings after redaction of personal data. Exhibits request dismissed for insufficient specification. Same headnotes as the companion decision regarding separate instance responsibility, document specification, and R.222.1 file consultation.