MILAN LOCAL DIVISION Law and Practice Contributed by: Vittorio Cerulli Irelli, Lorenzo Battarino and Daniel Borgogni, Trevisan & Cuonzo
4.5 Influence of Prior Local Practice on Procedural Issues As anticipated, the Milan LD has granted the highest number of orders to preserve evidence and inspection among all UPC divisions, and demonstrated significant capacity to handle all related issues (including confidentiality of the documents acquired, time line and deadlines to bring subsequent merits proceedings, need for security, etc). This is certainly the result of the judges of the local division being familiar with search orders that are routinely issued in Italian national practice, which influences their approach in the procedural nuances involved in granting such orders. A specific point where prior local practice has influenced the approach of the Italian judges of the Milan LD, still in relation to requests for orders to preserve evidence, is the need for security imposed on the applicant as a condi - tion for enforcement of the order. In the earli - est orders issued by the Milan LD, the need for security had been excluded, inter alia, because (under the traditional view of Italian IP courts) such evidentiary measures typically do not risk creating damages to the entity subject to the measure. Such approach has since been over - come in the framework of the ongoing effort by the UPC to harmonise the case law among divi - sions, and security is now routinely imposed by the Milan LD with orders to preserve evidence, for an amount based on the value and the spe - cific circumstances of the case. In a similar fashion, in its interpretation of the deadlines provided under Rules 197 and 198 RoP concerning the timeframe to bring mer - it proceedings following enforcement of an order to preserve evidence, the Milan LD was initially influenced by Italian procedural law, which provides that the strict deadline to do
in the Oerlikon v Bhagat case, the Milan LD has dismissed a request by the plaintiff to obtain disclosure from the defendant of accounting and financial information aimed at determining the extent of the infringing activities and there - fore the amount of reimbursable damages. The Milan LD reasoned that such request shall not be granted in infringement proceedings and is rather more appropriate in the subsequent pro - ceedings to award damages, where it could be dealt with more efficiently. 4.3 Third-Party Access to Documents So far, the Milan LD has adopted a rather strict approach to third-party requests to access documents of pending cases, opting to dismiss requests of third-party access on a number of occasions. The court has observed in par - ticular that access shall not be granted when information sought by the applicant could be obtained otherwise, when the applicant has not shown that access to the requested documents is necessary to protect its stated interest, and when access to the case file of proceedings still currently pending could influence the defen - sive strategy of the parties involved (see order ORD_4166/2025 dated 20 February 2025 in the application for access by Bhagat in the Oerlikon v Himson proceedings). On the other hand, the Milan LD has granted access to documents of the case (in particular, to a request to preserve evidence) to a third party where the concerned party had provided its consent to such access (without prejudice to the redaction of personal data) (see order of 4 December 2023 in the Pro - gress Maschinen v AWM et al case). 4.4 Pending Procedural Issues No publicly known procedural issues worth not - ing are pending at the time of writing.
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