KB-2025-001196 - [2025] EWHC 2113 (KB)

This is an application for imaging and ancillary orders. The basis for the application is, in broad summary, that the defendant, one of the claimant’s former employees, has improperly obtained and retained the claimant’s trade secrets and other confidential information.

The claimant asks for an order that the hearing be in private. It concedes that any order on the substantive application will be a public document and that a public judgment can be given, if necessary subject to redactions.

The test under regulation 10.4 of the Trade Secrets (Enforcement, etc.) Regulations 2018 and rule 39.2.3(c) is necessity in order to preserve confidentiality. Under regulation 10.7 I must also take into account the matters in that sub-paragraph when assessing the proposed privacy order.

The bulk of the relevant material has been provided to me in a confidential annex to the claimant’s witness statement. I am satisfied that this material falls within regulation 10 and rule 39.2.3(c). I have considered whether a measure less than a hearing in private would be practicable as being more proportionate. I have come to the view that as the material in the confidential annex is at the heart of the application, it would not be practicable to hear only part of the application in private and it is necessary to make a privacy order in relation to the entire hearing.

Any order that I make will not be a private order and I will circulate written reasons to the parties to ensure that a public judgment is given, but in such a manner that any confidential information is preserved.