The Hague court has ordered Jaguar Land Rover to return or destroy files seized from BYD’s Dutch offices in the dispute surrounding the Ti7 model. The materials must be returned or destroyed within 24 hours of official notification of the ruling. Failure to comply with the order carries a penalty of €50,000 for each hour, up to a maximum of €500,000. The ruling is immediately enforceable.
The proceedings are related to Jaguar Land Rover’s claim that the BYD Ti7 resembles the Land Rover Defender. However, the Dutch court explicitly states that it is not ruling on the merits of whether the Chinese SUV infringes JLR’s intellectual property rights.
The documents were collected in August from BYD’s offices in Schiedam and Hoofddorp under a court order requested by Jaguar Land Rover. They include plans for the launch of the Ti7, technical data, financial documents and information from the company’s computer systems.
Judge H. F. R. van Hemstra found that these materials were not necessary to establish whether the exterior design of the BYD Ti7 copied the Defender. According to the ruling, they were also not needed to calculate any potential damages, since the Ti7 has not been sold in the European Union.
“The ruling revokes the seizure of the evidence, but does not determine whether the SUV infringes JLR’s intellectual property rights,” the judge wrote.
The court has prohibited Jaguar Land Rover from taking further action under the original seizure order. A separate request for a surprise inspection of BYD’s internal files was also rejected.
BYD argued that the seizure had been excessive and had covered unrelated materials from the company’s research and development activities. On this point, the court found that the scope of the collection had been too broad.
Despite the procedural loss, Jaguar Land Rover continues to claim that the Ti7 copied the Defender’s design. The company also maintains that BYD disassembled a Land Rover Defender in order to study its technologies and use them in developing its own model. Separate proceedings on the merits of the dispute are under way in Rotterdam and The Hague.
The court has set legal costs at €25,376.57, which BYD must pay. This expense is separate from the penalty imposed on JLR for any delay in returning or destroying the seized files.