2026-07-30 - LD Paris - Merz v. Viatris Sant - UPC-CFI-0001901/2026

The Paris Local Division rejected a preliminary objection by which the defendant sought a declining of jurisdiction or a stay in favour of parallel national proceedings before the Tribunal Judiciaire de Paris. On lis pendens, the Division held that an application for provisional measures and the subsequent action on the merits are two distinct proceedings, so the earlier provisional-measures application does not fix the date on which the UPC was seised of the merits; the national court was therefore seised first. Art. 29 Brussels I recast nonetheless did not apply, because a national action for revocation, a declaration of non-infringement and a compulsory licence does not share the same subject matter or cause of action as a UPC infringement action. The Division further held that it is not for the UPC to assess whether the national court was validly seised under national law, a copy of the summons being sufficient to establish the date of seisin. The actions were found to be related within Art. 30 Brussels I recast, but the discretion conferred by that provision was exercised against a stay, principally because the UPC is likely to decide first and because the defendant had itself chosen the national forum after waiving its validity challenge before the Court of Appeal.