When To Put A Ring On It? Confidentiality In Litigation Proceedings

The Competition Appeal Tribunal (the CAT) and High Court have been considering the circumstances in which confidentiality rings are appropriate in competition and other proceedings. The key takeaway is that parties should consider whether the additional protection of a confidentiality ring is appropriate in circumstances where the collateral use restrictions in the Civil Procedure Rules (the CPR) or CAT Rules are not sufficient.

The collateral use restrictions (in CPR r. 31.22 and rule 102 of the CAT Rules) require parties to use disclosed documents only for the purpose of the proceedings. When further confidentiality restrictions are required over and above this, a confidentiality ring may be put in place to restrict access to certain documents to a specific subset of people (e.g. external legal representatives and experts).