Trade

Depending on the level of urgency, several options are possible:

• The interlocutory motion, a fast procedure: The interlocutory proceedings judge is referred to in order to provisionally settle an urgent or evidently unlawful situation. The interlocutory proceedings judge’s decision is referred to as provisional, and, accordingly, may be called into question if the unsuccessful party decides to initiate a traditional procedure, called procedure “on the merits”. The interlocutory order is provisionally enforceable. The average time period to obtain a decision is 3 months.
• The urgent interlocutory motion is an extremely fast procedure: An exceptional procedure enabling a provisional decision to be obtained within several days, in the most serious and urgent cases. To have recourse to such procedure, it is necessary to request the authorization from the Court President upon petition. If authorized by the President, then the other party must be summoned. The average time period to obtain a decision is a few days.
• Fixed-date motion, a very fast procedure: An exceptional procedure enabling a dispute to be definitively settled on the merits in several weeks, to prevent the occurrence of damages or to cease a situation causing prejudice. To have recourse to this procedure, it is also necessary to request the authorization from the Court President upon petition. If authorized by the President, the opposing party must be summoned at a fixed date. The average time period to obtain a decision on the merits is a few months.

The expertise procedure is particularly opportune to settle questions of a technical nature which may occur in disputes of any kind (construction/real estate, medical, intellectual property, commercial).

In intellectual property matters, the intervention of a court expert may be opportune, in particular, to:

• evaluate an intellectual property asset and/or the amount of royalties;
• identify an infringement in music copyright;
• define the extent of rights covered by a license.

For the intervention of a court expert, his designation must be requested before the competent Court by a summons called interlocutory application for an expert report, by presenting the situation and the reasons requiring such intervention.

The expert is designated by the judge in an injunction order, from the list of court experts of the competent court. The judge shall define the extent of his mission. The claimant shall be required to pay a provision prior to the expert’s intervention, for his fees.

The court expert shall fix an “expert appraisal meeting”, an adversarial meeting organized between the parties and the expert, during which the expert shall be informed of the situation, whilst the parties have the possibility to present their comments. Depending on the level of difficulty of the expertise, several meetings may be organized by the expert.

Following such meetings, the court expert shall draft a pre-report providing the parties with his analysis, observations and conclusions. The parties have the opportunity to respond in “statements”.

When the expert considers that he has sufficient elements, he shall draft his final report, to which the parties may once again respond, in summary “statements”.

It shall then be necessary for the party claiming the court expertise to summon the other party on the merits, in “opening conclusions” by referring to the expert appraisal conclusions, or, conversely, by criticizing certain points on which there are diverging opinions.

In this regard, the firm assists its clients in the expertise meetings, and also for the drafting of deeds relating to the request for an expertise and the expert appraisal operations:

• Summons for an expertise;
• Statements;
• Summons for opening conclusions;