CL-2022-000456 - [2025] EWHC 1614 (Comm)

“The starting point as a matter of law is the principle of open justice”, which is “vital”: [22]-[23].

A confidentiality order should be “the exception rather than the rule” and must be “justified” and go “no further than is necessary”: [25]-[26].

“The burden lies on those seeking to displace the application of the open justice principle to produce clear and cogent evidence to explain why that departure is justified” [27].

“… no claim of confidentiality can be maintained in respect of information which can be readily obtained by inspecting an article which is publicly accessible…”: [39]-[40].

The material in question must comprise “information the release of which the owner believes would be injurious to him or of advantage to his rivals or others”, and this belief must be reasonable: [36], citing Thomas Marshall Ltd v Guinle [1979] Ch. 227, per Sir Robert Megarry VC at p. 248.

However, “material which is commercially sensitive to the extent that it is confidential may cease to be confidential because the value of the information is lost by passage of time and progress”: [41].