Gowling WLG v Sumi Agro (CoA, 24 February 2026)

Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

By decision of 24 February 2026 (UPC_CoA_10/2026), the judge-rapporteur of the Court of Appeal granted Gowling WLG, a non-party firm, access to ten pleadings and documents in the appeal Sumi Agro v Syngenta (UPC_CoA_523/2024, EP 2 152 073), subject to redaction of personal data, and dismissed its request for « all exhibits ». The decision allocates access requests between first instance and appeal and requires requests to be specific.

Question

Can a non-party relying on an interest in understanding how preliminary injunction proceedings were conducted obtain the appeal pleadings and all exhibits, including those lodged at first instance?

Decision

The register and proceedings are public subject to confidentiality (Articles 10(1) and 45 UPCA), and Rule 262.1(b) requires a balancing exercise with those interests in line with Ocado (paragraphs 7 to 10). Requests for first-instance documents go to the relevant Division and requests for appeal documents to the Court of Appeal (paragraphs 12 to 14), first-instance documents are not normally re-lodged on appeal, since the Court consults the first-instance file under Rule 222.1 (paragraphs 15 and 16). Documents that are not on the appeal file were refused, the error lying with the requester (paragraph 17). The ambiguous request for « all exhibits » was dismissed: the requester must identify the documents and cannot leave the Court to select them by its own relevance criteria (paragraphs 18 to 20). Otherwise the stated interest sufficed (paragraph 21), with personal data to be redacted by the Registry (paragraph 22).

Key points for practice

• An access request must be addressed to the instance holding the document and identify each pleading or exhibit. A blanket request for « all exhibits » will be refused (paragraphs 12 to 20).

Provisions applied

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court

Arts 10(1) and 45, Statute, Arts 23 and 25

Rules of Procedure

Rules 222.1, 262.1(b), 262.2 and 262A

Other provisions

Registry Rules, Rules 56, 59, 66 and 73, Regulation (EU) 2016/679

Case law cited

Ocado Innovation v Autostore, Court of Appeal, 10 April 2024

Related decisions

• Sumi Agro v Syngenta, 19 December 2024, Court of Appeal order on new evidence, among the documents released.
• Docket Navigator v Syngenta, 19 December 2025, another public access request in the same appeal.

Prepared by Dhenne Avocats from the official decision, consulted on 10 October 2026. The database is updated every week, on Friday. Only the official text is authoritative.