Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Procedure – Intervention – Communication of pleadings to interveners – Derogation

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 116(2))

2. Procedure – Intervention – Communication of pleadings to interveners – Derogation

3. Procedure – Intervention – Communication of pleadings to interveners – Derogation

Summary

1. Article 116(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance provides that ‘the intervener shall receive a copy of every document served on the parties’, but that ‘[t]he President may, however, on application by one of the parties, omit secret or confidential documents’.

For the purpose of determining the conditions under which confidential treatment may be given to certain documents in the file, it is necessary to balance, in respect of each document or part of a document on the Court’s file for which confidential treatment is claimed, the applicant’s legitimate concern to prevent substantial damage to its business interests and the interveners’ equally legitimate concern to have the necessary information for the purpose of being fully in a position to assert their rights and to state their case before the Community judicature.

When the applicant has set out, in respect of each item covered by the request for confidential treatment, the reasons why it considers that disclosure thereof would substantially damage its business interests, the interveners’ challenge to the request for confidentiality must, so that the President can evaluate the balance of interests, relate to precise items of the procedural documents which have been obscured and indicate the reasons why confidentiality with regard to those items should be refused.

(see paras 9-12)

2. A request by one of the parties to withdraw from the file documents or parts of documents in respect of which the President is likely to reject the request for confidential treatment cannot be accepted, since it seeks to circumvent the President’s decision on the request for confidential treatment.

(see para. 13)

3. Confidential treatment of information relating to facts dating from more than five years ago can only, exceptionally, be granted if it is shown that, notwithstanding their historical nature, they still constitute essential elements of the commercial position of the undertaking concerned.

(see para. 45)