Practice

Search and seizure order - failure to disclose material matters to judge from whom order sought - order set asideThe Gadget Shop Ltd v The Bug Com Ltd and Others: ChD (Rimer J): 14 June 2000

The claimant sought and was granted a search and seizure order in their claim for passing off and infringement of copyright against the defendants.

The defendants applied to have the order set aside on several grounds including that the order did not comply with CPR Part 25 Practice Direction - Interim Injunctions.Richard Miller QC and Guy Tritton (instructed by Andrew M Jackson & Co, Hull) for the claimant.

Mark Platts-Mills QC and James Abrahams (instructed by Boote Edgar Esterkin, Manchester) for the defendants.Held, setting aside the order, that the claimant ought to have informed the judge making the order that (1) there was a possibility that the search may have had to be carried out at the home of an unaccompanied woman, (2) that the supervising solicitors were not partners of the claimants' firm (a matter upon which the judge had to be satisfied that a departure from the standard requirement that a partner should be present could be justified), (3) that there was no undertaking by the claimant not to inform anyone else of the proceedings, (4) that the supervising solicitors did not have any material recent experience of the execution of search orders, and (5) that a set of confidential documents were going to be used by the search team; that failure to disclose that information amounted to material departures from the standard form of order; and that, accordingly, the order would be set aside.