2026-10-26 - CoA - Carpmaels & Ransford v. Microsoft et al. - UPC-COA-0000155/2026

If the Court of First Instance has made an assessment of information and considered it confidential in a non-appealed order, unless otherwise stated in the order, this continues to apply in subsequent proceedings before the Court of Appeal (see UPC CoA order of 28 March 2024, UPC-CoA-101/2024, Curio Bioscience vs 10x Genomics; a non-appealed order by the Court of First Instance pursuant to R. 262A RoP that restricts access to certain information or evidence to specific persons, unless otherwise stated in the order, continues to apply after the proceedings, and therefore applies also to the appeal proceedings).

The Court of Appeal judge-rapporteur granted a law firm's R. 262.1(b) RoP request for access to the pleadings in two rehearing proceedings, applying the Ocado access framework and confirming that a law firm is a member of the public and that a general interest in understanding how the proceedings were conducted is sufficient. Access was refused for one exhibit that reproduced material declared confidential by a non-appealed Court of First Instance order establishing a confidentiality club under R. 262A RoP. Following Curio Bioscience v 10x Genomics, the Court held that such a first-instance confidentiality assessment continues to apply in later Court of Appeal proceedings unless the order states otherwise, even where the material is re-filed by the other party as an exhibit together with its own commentary. Disclosure of that material can only be considered on a separate R. 262.3 RoP application; the documents released are to be redacted of personal data by the Registry.