Various Claimants v Mercedes-Benz Group AG & Ors

Under CPR 31.22(2), the court may restrict collateral use of material referred to in open court where the applicant identifies specific commercial sensitivity and likely harm. The court must balance open justice and public scrutiny against those interests, having regard to the document’s role and relevance in the particular hearing. Targeted redactions may be justified where the material is commercially sensitive but unnecessary to understand the trial or judgment. Protection should be confined to the context in which the document lost its automatic protection and should not automatically extend to future hearings. Under CPR 5.4C(2), a non-party must show that access would advance open justice. Access may be refused where unredacted disclosure is unnecessary and would expose commercially sensitive information to public use.

The Mercedes Defendants applied under CPR 31.22(2) to restrict collateral use of commercially sensitive information in three documents referred to or read in public during the KBA Issues Trial. Deutsche Umwelthilfe and ClientEarth applied under CPR 5.4C(2) for unredacted versions of documents referred to at that trial.

The documents contained German type-approval material and technical information concerning vehicle software, calibrations and parameters. The court had to determine whether the claimed information was sufficiently specific and commercially sensitive to justify renewed protection, and whether disclosure to non-parties was necessary to advance open justice.

1. CPR 31.22(2) application. The automatic protection under CPR 31.22(1) was lost when the documents were referred to or read in a public hearing. The court nevertheless retained discretion under CPR 31.22(2) to restrict use. The governing approach in Lilly Icos Ltd v Pfizer Ltd (No. 2) required open justice to be the starting point, very good reasons for restricting publicity, consideration of the document’s role in the trial, any chilling effect, and specific evidence of commercial harm.
2. The application concerning Document 1 was sufficiently targeted. The evidence identified particular technical parameters, calibrations and software information, explained their continuing commercial relevance, and showed how disclosure could give competitors development advantages. The court accepted that evidence and rejected the contention that it consisted only of bare assertions.
3. The proposed redactions were generally irrelevant and unnecessary to understanding the KBA Issues Trial or its judgment. They could therefore be protected. A limited passage on page 111 was excluded because it had been the direct source of a finding in the public judgment and its confidentiality had thereby been lost.
4. The protection was granted for Documents 1, 2 and 3 in equivalent terms. The order was to remain in force only so long as the protected material was not referred to in later proceedings. If the material became relevant to the future PDD Issues Trial, a fresh balancing exercise might produce a different result.
5. CPR 5.4C(2) applications. Applying Cape Intermediate Holdings Ltd v Dring, the Interested Parties had to explain how access would advance open justice. They failed to show that unredacted technical information was necessary to understand or scrutinise the KBA Issues Trial or judgment. The fact that they were not competitors did not remove the risk that unrestricted disclosure would make the information public. Their applications for unredacted access were therefore refused.

The judgment is a first-instance decision. It records earlier decisions in the same proceedings, including the De-Designation Judgment ([2024] EWHC 190 (KB)), the Collateral Use Judgment ( [2024] EWHC 695 (KB)) and the KBA Issues Trial judgment ( [2024] EWHC 2904 (KB)).