2026-03-18 - LD Brussels - Establishment Labs v. GC Aesthetics et al. - UPC-CFI-0001357/2025, UPC-CFI-0000629/2026

ENGLISH: While the place of incorporation and registration of the claimant could be a relevant factor in assessing a request for security, its relevance should be determined by establishing whether "similar or identical" guarantees are in place for recognising and enforcing a UPC costs order in the foreign (non-EU/EEA) state (cf. Chint v JingAO headnotes). Therefore, this factor is relevant to the decision of whether or not to grant security, rather than to the decision on the amount of the security. 2. When arguing that the recognition and/or enforcement proceedings of UPC costs orders are "unduly burdensome" in the relevant state, based on the alleged duration of these proceedings, the Court requires a standard/reference to assess these arguments. Assessing whether the duration leads to proceedings to be "unduly" (i.e. "excessive" or "unreasonable") burdensome implies a standard/reference in the sense of proceedings being not burdensome or "duly" (i.e. "acceptable" or "reasonable") burdensome. 3. While the duration of the enforcement proceedings might, based on the provided evidence, not be sufficient to establish "undue burden" of enforcement, it could be taken into consideration when examining the facts and circumstances in the assessment of legitimate concerns regarding the recoverability of a costs order related to the claimant's financial position. 4. When setting the security amount, consideration should be given to the costs likely to be incurred by introducing the counterclaim for revocation (if there is no indication that the defendants would have initiated a stand-alone revocation action had they not been confronted with the infringement action). 5. A witness statement that does not align with R. 175.2 RoP is not

The Brussels LD ordered Establishment Labs (Costa Rica) to provide EUR 600,000 security for costs. The court rejected the undue burden argument regarding Costa Rica enforcement — defendants failed to provide a benchmark for assessing whether enforcement duration was 'excessive'. However, security was granted on the legitimate concern threshold because LABS's financial position raised recoverability doubts. The court included counterclaim-for-revocation costs in the security calculation as a defensive action, and set the amount at 50% of the ceiling based on proportionality. Non-compliant witness statements under R. 175.2 RoP were given limited weight but not excluded entirely.