2026-05-22 - CoA - SharkNinja v. Seb - UPC-COA-0000061/2026

ENGLISH: In the interest of legal certainty, to guarantee the authenticity of a procedural document and to exclude the risk that it is not in fact the work of the person authorized for that purpose, the procedural document itself must bear an electronic signature. R. 9.3 (a) RoP expressly allows the retroactive extension of a time period. This means that an extension order can be issued after the time period has expired and also that the Court may grant a time extension even if the applicant lodged the request for extension after the time period has expired.

The Court of Appeal (Panel 2) ruled on a confidentiality application under R. 262A RoP arising from SharkNinja's appeal against the Paris LD's dismissal of its provisional measures application. The Court established two general procedural principles in its headnotes: (i) the CMS 'sign submission' workflow is not itself a signature for R. 4.1 RoP purposes — 'the procedural document itself must bear an electronic signature'; and (ii) R. 9.3(a) RoP expressly allows the retroactive extension of a time period, so an extension may be granted after expiry and even on a request lodged after expiry. On the merits, sales data from a third-party data provider was recognised as confidential because — although available to anyone who pays — it is not readily accessible, has commercial value evidenced by the paid access model, and the provider has taken reasonable steps to keep it secret (Art. 39(2) TRIPS standard). The confidentiality club was set at four SEB natural persons (two marketing employees and two legal-department employees), and SEB was given five working days — not the requested seven — to comment on the confidential material.