Case Law
Rule 313: Application to intervene
Court of First Instance - Milan (IT) Central Division- Section, Order dated 27/03/2025, ZENTIVA K.S., ZENTIVA PORTUGAL, LDA (Case/ Registry number: App_9038/2025, ORD_10348/2025)
Example of decision finding that parallelism between cases or claiming a judgment’s direct impact on another does not confer a legal interest to intervene: "36. As Zentiva has correctly argued in its observations, what is relevant in the Rule 313 RoP is the right to be heard in the procedure, but if the party has a parallel legal interest in the procedure, the rule is that it should present its defence in a parallel procedure.
37. To summarize, (see UPC_CFI_380/2024 Order no. ORD 52068/2024 CD Milan and in UPC_CFI_153/24 CD Munich) a distinction must be made between prospective interveners who have a direct interest in the outcome of the specific form of order sought by the party they are supporting, and those who have only an indirect and parallel interest in the outcome of the case by virtue of factual similarity between their situation and that of one of the parties.
38. In the present case, there is no need for ZENTIVA to be heard in the non-infringement proceedings because the decision in these proceedings shall have no direct effect on it. Whatever is decided between ACCORD and NOVARTIS will always and in any case remain res inter alios acta for ZENTIVA. The application is therefore unfounded."
Court of Appeal - Luxembourg (LU), Order dated 08/01/2025, MediaTek Inc. (Case/ Registry number: App_67902/2024, ORD_68032/2024)
Example of a decision on the admissibility of a late application to intervene: "Pursuant to R. 313.1 RoP, an application to intervene may be lodged at any stage of the proceedings before the Court by any person establishing a legal interest in the result of an action submitted to the Court. An interest in the result of the action within the meaning of this provision means a direct and present interest in the grant of the order or decision as sought by the party whom the applicant wishes to support (CoA 10 January 2024, UPC_CoA_404/2023 App_584498/2023).
[...] Pursuant to R. 313.2 RoP, an application to intervene shall be admissible only if it is made before the closure of the written procedure unless the Court orders otherwise. In this case there is reason to order otherwise. MediaTek declared that it does not intend to file a statement of intervention under R. 315.1 and R. 315.3 and wishes only to be allowed to participate in the oral hearing to support Xiaomi in their request to dismiss the appeal. Allowing the intervention will therefore not result in any delay of the appeal proceedings."
Court of First Instance - Milan (IT) Central Division- Section, Order dated 23/12/2024, Insulet Corporation v. Menarini Diagnostics (Case/ Registry number: App_58027/2024, ORD_59988/2024)
Example of a decision on the conditions for third-party intervention: "Secondly, a "party" to the proceedings is also a legal entity who brings a claim based on the assertion of his own right, on which the court is called upon to rule at the end of the proceedings, which are governed by legal rules and respect the adversarial principle.
The application to intervene under Rule 313, whatever its outcome, opens a sub-proceeding which requires the enforcement of the rule of law and leads either to the intervener’s access to the proceedings (so that the applicant becomes a "party" to those proceedings) or to his exclusion. This decision is of a judicial nature and is taken after a comparative assessment of the parties’ claims.
[...] The Court, in addition, observed “Moreover, pursuant to Rule313 RoP intervention is allowed to a third party having its own interest not merely factual but legal. The third party must therefore present itself as the owner of a legal relationship connected with the one brought in litigation by the counterpart or dependent on it, and the connection must entail a total or partial impairment of the right of which the third party claims to be the owner in the event the original party loses the case; that is to say, it is necessary to be the owner of a substantial situation connected with the relationship brought in litigation, such as to expose the third party to the reflexive effects of the judgement.
[...] The court’s decision on the existence of a legal basis for intervention is therefore not merely formal, but goes into the substance of the intervener’s rights, weighing up the arguments of both sides and placing them within the legal framework of Rule 313 nos. 1) and 2) RoP."
Court of First Instance - Milan (IT) Central Division - Section, Order dated 01/10/2024, EOFLOW Co., Ltd. v. Insulet Corporation (Case/ Registry number: UPC_CFI_380/2024, ORD_52068/2024)
Example of decision on the application to intervene: "Moreover, pursuant to Art. 313 RoP intervention is allowed to a third party having its own interest not merely factual but legal. The third party must therefore present itself as the owner of a legal relationship connected with the one brought in litigation by the counterpart or dependent on it and the connection must entail a total or partial impairment of the right of which the third party claims to be the owner in the event the original party loses the case; that is to say, it is necessary to be the owner of a substantial situation connected with the relationship brought in litigation, such as to expose the third party to the reflexive effects of the judgement. In this case, however, the legal interest of MENARINI is already granted by way of defence in the parallel proceedings in front of UPC Milan Local Division. Furthermore, the defendants have already tried to avoid parallel proceedings by filing a request of joinder, rejected both by the Judge rapporteur and the panel. This Court has already pointed out that, outside the perimeter of the mandatory consolidation of cases as governed by Article 33 UPCA, there is no room for the party to obtain a joinder, even throughout the intervention of third parties in the parallel proceedings, if the court does not consider it appropriate or has adopted other solutions. If, on the other hand, the third party has a mere de facto interest in one of the parties to the principal relationship being victorious, to only bolster the parallel case, no legitimacy to intervene can be recognised and this is precisely the situation that arises in the present case, since MENARINI already defends its interest in a parallel proceedings in front of UPC Milan Local Division and his intervention is merely aimed at strengthening EOFLOW’s defence. MENARINI has merely raised the possibility that the granting of the injunction in these proceedings may affect its interests; the interest raised is therefore merely hypothetical whereas the risk of divergent decision, above all in pre-trial cases, cannot be entirely eliminated."
Court of First Instance - Düsseldorf (DE) Local Division, Order dated 26/06/2024, Dolby International AB v. HP PPS Sverige AB, HP International SARL, HP Inc Danmark ApS, HP Deutschland GmbH, Hewlett-Packard d.o.o., HP Italy S.r.l., HP Austria GmbH, HP Belgium SPRL, HP Finland Oy, Hewlett-Packard Luxembourg SCA, HP Inc., Hewlett-Packard Nederland BV, HP Inc Bulgaria EOOD (Ейч Пи Инк България ЕООД), HPCP – Computing and Printing Portugal, Unipessoal, Lda., HP France SAS (Case/ Registry number: UPC_CFI_457/2023, ORD_37232/2024)
Example of decision on the legal interest to lodge an application to intervene: "1. The legal interest required for the admissibility of the intervention is given if the intervener has a direct and present interest in the issuance of the order or decision requested by the supported party.
2. Such a legal interest can be affirmed if the patent in dispute was introduced into a patent pool by the plaintiff, the intervener was entrusted with the performance of the plaintiff’s FRAND obligations and with the licensing of the portfolio including the patent in dispute and the defendant invokes the fact that the other party did not fulfil its FRAND obligations due to alleged inadequacies of the intervener’s licence offers."
Court of First Instance - Mannheim (DE) Local Division, Order dated 6/05/2024, Photon Wave, Seoul Viosys / Laser Components (Case number: UPC_CFI_440/2023 ORD_18404/2024)
Example of decision on the rejection of the intervener’s independent applications: “According to rule 315.4 of the Rules of Procedure, "an intervener shall be treated as a party unless the court decides otherwise". As such, the intervener has the rights attaching to party status and participates in the proceedings, subject nevertheless, in accordance with rule 313.2 of the Rules of Procedure, to the intervention being "made in whole or in part in support of a claim", which means that the intervener may not develop claims contrary to the party he supports and may not develop claims independently and in accordance with procedural arrangements that are distinct from those offered to the party it is supporting.”
Court of Appeal - Luxembourg (LU), Order dated 10/01/2024, Ocado Innovation Limited vs AS [et al.] / Mathys & Squire LLP & Bristows (Ireland) LLP (Case number UPC_CoA_404/2023, APL_584498/2023)
Example of decision on the meaning of the legal interest condition to intervene in an appeal : “An interest in the result of the action within the meaning of R.313.1 RoP means a direct and present interest in the grant by the Court of the order or decision as sought by the party, whom the prospective intervener whishes to support and not an interest in relation to the pleas in law put forward. It is necessary to distinguish between prospective interveners establishing a direct interest in the ruling on the specific request sought by the supported party, and those who can establish only an indirect interest in the result of the case by reason of similarities between their situation and that of one of the parties. A similiarity between two cases is not sufficient.”