SWEDEN Law and Practice Contributed by: Simon Arvmyren, Christopher Stridh and Mikaela Tysk, Delphi
4.6 Costs of Interim Applications/Motions The court deals with the costs in interim applications in the same way as the costs for the case in full, see 11. Costs . 4.7 Application/Motion Timeframe There is no specific timeframe for a court to deal with an application/motion, but a party may request that an application is dealt with urgently. See 6. Injunctive Relief concerning urgency and the possibility to have applications granted ex parte. Discovery in civil cases in the way it exists in Anglo- American countries is not recognised under Swedish law. The available mechanism is instead the right of the court to order a party or a third person to produce certain important documents in civil cases. See 5.4 Alternatives to Discovery Mechanisms . 5.2 Discovery and Third Parties See 5.4 Alternatives to Discovery Mechanisms . 5.3 Discovery in This Jurisdiction 5. Discovery 5.1 Discovery and Civil Cases See 5.4 Alternatives to Discovery Mechanisms . 5.4 Alternatives to Discovery Mechanisms As mentioned in 5.1 Discovery and Civil Cases , broad discovery is not available to parties in Swedish court proceedings and each party is responsible for secur- ing, collecting and submitting the evidence it deems necessary. Having said that, it is possible to apply to the court and request production of documents under Chapter 38, Section 2 of the Procedural Code. For such an order to be successful the application must fulfil the following criteria: • the document sought must be sufficiently identi- fied, and so should categories of documents, as long as the definition is fairly narrow to be accept- able; • the document sought must be important to the dispute in terms of being relevant and material to the outcome of the case; and
• the defendant or a third party must have the docu- ment in its possession. Also, electronic “documents” may be included in a request and a party may be ordered to provide elec- tronic documents in the electronic format. If a docu- ment covered by a request constitutes a trade secret, the responding party will not be ordered to disclose it unless there are compelling reasons. 5.5 Legal Privilege Attorney-client privilege is recognised under Swed- ish law and governed by the Procedural Code as well as the Swedish Bar Association’s Code of Conduct. Attorney-client privilege applies to both documents and testifying in court. Attorney-client privilege does not apply for in-house counsel, only for members of the Swedish Bar Associ- ation. However, counsel representing a client in court proceedings is covered by the attorney-client privilege and may not be forced to testify. There are certain exceptions to attorney-client privi- lege, related to, for instance, the obligation to report certain matters to the police in relation to the EU-wide legislation intended to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism. 5.6 Rules Disallowing Disclosure of a Document See 5.4 Alternatives to Discovery Mechanisms . 6. Injunctive Relief 6.1 Circumstances of Injunctive Relief Chapter 15 of the Procedural Code provides rules regarding provisional relief, including the possibility of awarding injunctions freezing assets. A party seek- ing provisional relief must make an application to the court, asking it to freeze the opposing party’s assets equivalent to the value of the claim. The request for provisional relief will be sustained if the applicant shows that there is probable cause for the principal claim to be successful and that there is reasonable suspicion that the defendant will try to evade fulfilment
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