Almost every US or UK client with a dispute in France asks the same first question: can we get discovery? The answer first disappoints, then surprises.
France has no US-style general disclosure, no party depositions and no interrogatories. Yet French law allows a party to obtain a court order, without notice to its opponent, sending a court officer into the opponent’s premises to copy documents before any lawsuit is filed.
The stakes are concrete. The emails you need sit on a server in Paris. A letter before action gives their author time to delete them. And once the lawsuit on the merits is filed, the pre-action route closes.
This guide covers what Article 145 of the French Code of Civil Procedure allows, what it forbids, how the respondent fights back, and where foreign parties most often go wrong: privilege, the blocking statute and the calendar. It also covers the latest limit set by the Cour de cassation, in May 2026: a court officer may not access patients’ medical data without their consent.
Is there discovery in France? The short answer
No, there is no discovery in France in the US sense: no party must search for and hand over the documents that hurt its case. French law replaces discovery with targeted measures ordered by a judge. Before any lawsuit, Article 145 CPC allows a court officer’s visit to copy defined documents, ordered ex parte where surprise is needed (Cass. 2e civ., 15 January 2009, n° 08-10.771). The measure must be limited in time and subject matter (Cass. 2e civ., 10 June 2021, n° 20-11.987). Once the lawsuit is filed, the judge may still order investigative measures (art. 143 CPC) and production of identified documents (art. 11 CPC).
French evidence tools compared
French civil procedure starts from the opposite premise to discovery. Each party proves the facts it relies on (art. 9 CPC). There is no general obligation to search for and disclose adverse material merely because it may help the opponent. The tools below are the exceptions, and each has its own timing.
| Tool | When | Is the opponent warned? | What it obtains | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 145 order on ex parte application (requête) | Before any lawsuit | No, surprise visit | Court officer copies defined documents, often with an IT expert | Art. 145 and 493 CPC |
| Article 145 order in summary proceedings (référé) | Before any lawsuit | Yes, adversarial hearing | Expert appointment, production of documents, findings | Art. 145 CPC |
| Investigative measure ordered by the trial judge | After the lawsuit is filed | Yes | Court-appointed expert, findings, consultation, witness hearing | Art. 143 and 144 CPC |
| Production order | After the lawsuit is filed | Yes | A document identified in advance, held by the opponent or a third party | Art. 11 and 138 to 142 CPC |
| Evidence already in your hands, even obtained unlawfully | At any stage | Not applicable | Admission if indispensable and strictly proportionate | Ass. plén., 22 December 2023, n° 20-20.648 |
The first line is the one that comes closest to discovery, and the one this guide is mainly about.
What Article 145 actually says
The text is short. Every word of it is litigated.
S’il existe un motif légitime de conserver ou d’établir avant tout procès la preuve de faits dont pourrait dépendre la solution d’un litige, les mesures d’instruction légalement admissibles peuvent être ordonnées à la demande de tout intéressé, sur requête ou en référé.
La juridiction territorialement compétente pour statuer sur une demande formée en application du premier alinéa est, au choix du demandeur, celle susceptible de connaître de l’affaire au fond ou, s’il y a lieu, celle dans le ressort de laquelle la mesure d’instruction doit être exécutée.
Par dérogation au deuxième alinéa, lorsque la mesure d’instruction porte sur un immeuble, la juridiction du lieu où est situé l’immeuble est seule compétente.
Article 145 of the French Code of Civil Procedure, as amended by décret n° 2025-619 du 8 juillet 2025
English translation:
If there is a legitimate reason to preserve or establish, before any trial, evidence of facts on which the outcome of a dispute may depend, legally admissible investigative measures may be ordered at the request of any interested party, on an ex parte application or in summary proceedings.
The court with territorial jurisdiction over such a request is, at the applicant’s choice, the court that may hear the case on the merits or, where appropriate, the court in whose area the measure is to be carried out.
By way of derogation, where the measure concerns real property, the court of the place where the property is located has exclusive jurisdiction.
The second and third paragraphs were added by décret n° 2025-619 du 8 juillet 2025 and apply to proceedings started from 1 September 2025.
The first paragraph contains three conditions: no trial yet, a legitimate reason, and an admissible measure. The ex parte route adds a fourth: a reason not to warn the opponent.
Suing in France: a Practical Guide for Foreign Claimants
The four conditions a French judge checks
Has a lawsuit on the merits already been filed?
Article 145 is only available if no lawsuit on the merits has yet been filed on the dispute: the text requires the measure to be sought « before any trial » (art. 145 CPC). Once the claim is issued, Article 145 closes for that dispute.
Evidence can still be obtained afterwards, but on different terms. The trial judge may order any legally admissible investigative measure, such as an expert report (art. 143 and 144 CPC), and the production of identified documents (art. 11 and 138 to 142 CPC). Those measures are adversarial, so the surprise visit is no longer available, and the judge may refuse them if they would only make up for a party’s failure to produce evidence (art. 146 CPC).
The practical consequence is a strict order of operations: evidence first, lawsuit second. A foreign claimant who files a French claim to « get things moving » gives up the most powerful evidence tool French law offers.
Is there a legitimate reason?
A legitimate reason exists when the applicant shows a plausible future claim, not manifestly bound to fail, and a need for evidence on which that claim may depend. The Versailles Court of Appeal applied this test in the Metabyte case, and the Cour de cassation dismissed the appeal against its ruling (Cass. 1re civ., 3 November 2016, n° 15-20.495).
The facts of that case are a textbook for foreign claimants. Metabyte, a US company, and the Technicolor group (formerly Thomson) held a joint subsidiary, MNI. The patents of MNI were auctioned and transferred to a Technicolor group entity for 1 million US dollars. A higher offer from Metabyte had been turned down.
The court officer found the relevant files on the laptop of a Technicolor executive. They had been removed from the group’s servers. The executive told the officer he had deliberately isolated them from the rest of the information system. These findings of the Court of Appeal are reproduced in the Cour de cassation’s decision.
Two further points matter to foreign parties.
The legitimate reason is assessed under French law, not under the foreign law that may govern the future claim (Cass. 1re civ., 3 November 2016, n° 15-20.495).
The applicant does not have to prove its claim. The rule that a judge may not order a measure to make up for a party’s failure to produce evidence (art. 146 CPC) does not apply to Article 145 (Cass. 2e civ., 10 March 2011, n° 10-11.732). The point of the procedure is precisely to obtain what you do not have.
Is the measure legally admissible and proportionate?
An admissible measure is one limited in time and subject matter, and proportionate to the aim pursued. The judge must check that it is necessary to the applicant’s right to evidence and proportionate to the opponent’s interests, business secrets included (Cass. 2e civ., 10 June 2021, n° 20-11.987).
That decision is the reference on keyword searches. Neovia, a firm advising on retirement rights, suspected its former agents and staff of unfair competition, poaching and fake online reviews. It obtained orders against several companies.
The orders authorised searches with keywords such as « Google », « LinkedIn », « salarié » (employee), « accord », « avis » (review) and the first names of the targets. The Cour de cassation quashed the ruling upholding them: the lower court had not shown that these generic words were sufficiently circumscribed.
The second limit concerns the court officer’s powers. An order allowing the officer to search the premises at will, and to take any document « of any nature », without first asking for voluntary handover and obtaining consent, exceeds Article 145 (Cass. 2e civ., 16 May 2012, n° 11-17.229).
In that case, AVS Communication had lost four employees, 40 % of its staff, three of whom had set up a competitor, Publistick. The order let the officer open « any cupboard, drawer, piece of furniture » and copy any « corporate, tax, accounting, administrative document, of any nature whatsoever ». The order was set aside.
The sanction went further. The documents seized were ordered returned, and the Court of Appeal noted that AVS Communication could no longer rely on them. The appeal against that ruling was dismissed.
Business secrecy is not in itself an obstacle to Article 145. The judge must still find that the measure rests on a legitimate reason, is necessary, and does not disproportionately harm the other party (Cass. 2e civ., 10 June 2021, n° 20-11.987).
Why can’t the other side be warned?
An ex parte order is a provisional decision made without hearing the opponent, « in cases where the applicant is entitled not to summon an opposing party » (art. 493 CPC). The circumstances justifying that choice must appear in the application and the order. If neither states them, the order is set aside without any review of its merits (Cass. 2e civ., 11 March 2010, n° 09-66.338).
The order need not repeat them. An order that refers to the application is deemed to adopt its reasons, and the judge hearing the challenge must then look for the circumstances in the application itself (Cass. 2e civ., 5 March 2026, n° 23-13.723, published in the Bulletin). In that case, Alsatec had obtained a search against a competitor, now Protego France, and a former employee. The Colmar Court of Appeal set the order aside because it merely referred to the application. The Cour de cassation quashed that ruling.
General statements do not suffice. In the Maydex case, the application only said that Alstom, once informed, would « very probably » be tempted to hide evidence, and that surprise was necessary. The Paris Court of Appeal set the order aside, returned the documents seized and annulled the officer’s report. The Cour de cassation dismissed the appeal (Cass. 2e civ., 19 November 2020, n° 19-12.086).
Urgency is not required (Cass. 2e civ., 15 January 2009, n° 08-10.771). In that case, ITM Entreprises accused two Carrefour companies of unfair competition: many stores of its network had changed banner without letting it exercise its pre-emption rights.
The court officer was sent to the head offices of Carrefour administratif France and CSF to collect documents and hear several people. The Cour de cassation upheld the justification given: the mission was more likely to succeed if the other side was not warned, since the people concerned could otherwise agree on their story.
A common assumption is that a letter before action automatically rules out an ex parte application. It does not: a prior warning is a vulnerability, not a bar.
The vulnerability is real. N2LT Partners and Grenadines & Cie had sent Markus a detailed formal notice in February 2020 before applying ex parte in July 2020, on the same facts. The Cour de cassation quashed the ruling upholding the order: the judges should have checked whether surprise was still necessary on the day of the application (Cass. 2e civ., 18 January 2024, n° 21-26.001).
The application can nonetheless survive. Amplegest had written to Société parisienne de gestion (SPG) in July 2022, denouncing the « looting » of its clients and announcing that a summons for summary proceedings was « already drafted ». It applied ex parte two months later.
The order was upheld. The letter announced a different, adversarial procedure, not an Article 145 measure, and only an ex parte order could prevent the selection of documents and the deletion or alteration of electronic data. The commercial chamber of the Cour de cassation dismissed SPG’s appeal, in an unpublished decision (Cass. com., 28 January 2026, n° 24-12.153).
If a warning has already been sent, the application must therefore explain concretely why surprise remains necessary despite it.
For the full French case law on each condition, see our detailed guide to the conditions of Article 145 (in French).
What happens on the day of the visit
The visit is carried out by a commissaire de justice, the French court officer formerly called huissier de justice. Orders commonly allow an IT expert to assist, to run keyword searches and to copy data, with the copies kept in escrow by the officer. The orders reviewed in the Neovia and Opti’Cotis cases contained such provisions (Cass. 2e civ., 10 June 2021, n° 20-11.987; Cass. 1re civ., 6 December 2023, n° 22-19.285).
The officer is not a police officer and must first ask for the documents to be handed over voluntarily (Cass. 2e civ., 16 May 2012, n° 11-17.229).
A respondent who obstructs the visit is not immune. The parties must cooperate with investigative measures, and the judge may draw any conclusion from an abstention or refusal (art. 11 CPC).
A new deadline applies to orders issued from 1 October 2026. The order must be carried out within three months of its date, unless the judge sets another period. Otherwise it lapses, and the judge raises this of the judge’s own motion (art. 495 CPC, as amended by décret n° 2026-683 du 27 juillet 2026, art. 1 and 21). Visits planned across several sites or countries must therefore be organised before the application is filed.
A respondent facing a visit has a limited set of rights and a short list of reflexes, detailed in our guide on how to respond to an Article 145 visit (in French).
After the visit: escrow, challenge and the one-month deadline
The respondent challenges the order by asking the judge who issued it to set it aside (art. 496 and 497 CPC). The judge need not be the same individual who signed the order (Cass. 2e civ., 11 March 2010, n° 09-66.338).
For orders issued from 1 October 2026, this challenge must be brought within one month of service of the order, failing which it is inadmissible (art. 496 CPC, as amended by décret n° 2026-683 du 27 juillet 2026).
The same one-month period already governed escrow. Where the judge has placed the documents in provisional escrow to protect business secrets, the escrow is lifted if no challenge is brought within one month of service, and the documents go to the applicant (art. R. 153-1 C. com.).
This is the trap for foreign groups. The order is usually served on the French subsidiary, while the decision makers sit in New York or London. The month runs from service in France, not from the day headquarters is informed.
On the applicant’s side, an application that is refused can be appealed within fifteen days (art. 496 CPC). The procedure for challenging an order is set out in our guide to the challenge of an ex parte order (in French).
Privilege: what a French court officer may take
Does US or English legal privilege apply to documents seized in France?
No, US or English legal privilege does not apply as such to documents seized in France under Article 145. Whether a document is protected is determined by the French rules on professional secrecy and confidentiality. In the Metabyte case, the only reservation approved by the Cour de cassation was French professional secrecy between a client and its avocat or between avocats (art. 66-5 of loi n° 71-1130 du 31 décembre 1971; Cass. 1re civ., 3 November 2016, n° 15-20.495).
In that case, Technicolor argued that the documents seized were communications with in-house and outside counsel protected by US privilege. The Court of Appeal held that the documents had been exchanged between lawyers who were not avocats under French law. The Cour de cassation dismissed the appeal.
The same decision approved the statement that business secrecy and professional secrecy are not in themselves obstacles to Article 145.
A « privileged and confidential » legend added under US practice therefore does not, on its own, protect a document in a French Article 145 procedure.
Can the avocat‘s own files be searched?
French professional secrecy is not absolute either. It exists in the client’s interest, not the lawyer’s. It does not in itself prevent an Article 145 measure intended to establish the lawyer’s own misconduct, provided the measure is indispensable, proportionate and carried out with adequate safeguards (Cass. 1re civ., 6 December 2023, n° 22-19.285).
In that case, Opti’Cotis suspected a Toulouse lawyer with whom it had a services agreement of diverting its clients and withholding files. It obtained a search of the lawyer’s office. The Court of Appeal set the order aside on the ground of professional secrecy, and the Cour de cassation quashed that ruling.
Can a court officer access medical data under an Article 145 order?
No, a court officer cannot access patients’ medical data under an Article 145 order without the patient’s prior consent. Medical secrecy is not in itself a bar to Article 145. But the judge must either involve the healthcare professional holding the data, the only person entitled to access and anonymise it, or order provisional escrow without the officer accessing the content (Cass. 2e civ., 21 May 2026, n° 22-19.299, published in the Bulletin; decision obtained by the firm, acting for the respondent).
Eurofins Clinical Testing Italia Holding SRL, an Italian company suspecting a fraud, had obtained an order from the president of a commercial court for a visit to the premises of Advanced Technologies Laboratory (ATL), a medical biology laboratory.
The Versailles Court of Appeal refused to set the order aside. It merely instructed the court officer to remove the nominative medical data himself before the escrow was lifted. The Cour de cassation quashed that ruling in its entirety: a court officer may only make purely material findings, and cannot sort through data covered by medical secrecy.
Where the target holds patient data, the application must therefore provide for one of the two safeguards from the outset.
Are French in-house counsel opinions now protected?
A common mistake is to assume that French in-house counsel opinions can never be protected. That was the position under Metabyte. Loi n° 2026-122 du 23 février 2026 will protect written legal consultations by in-house legal counsel (juristes d’entreprise) in civil, commercial and administrative matters, provided the statutory conditions are met (art. 58-1 of loi n° 71-1130 du 31 décembre 1971).
The conditions are cumulative. The drafter, whether the juriste d’entreprise or a member of the team acting under the juriste‘s control, must hold a master’s degree in law or an equivalent. The juriste d’entreprise must have completed ethics training.
The document must be a genuine legal consultation: personalised advice based on the application of a rule of law. It must be addressed exclusively to the management bodies of the employer, of its controlling company or of its controlled subsidiaries.
It must bear the exact wording « confidentiel – consultation juridique – juriste d’entreprise », identify its author and be filed separately. Protected consultations cannot be seized or ordered to be handed over in civil, commercial or administrative proceedings. The protection does not apply in criminal or tax proceedings (art. 58-1, II).
The law organises its own procedure during Article 145 visits. Where confidentiality is claimed, the court officer places the consultation under closed seal. The applicant may challenge the claim before the president of the court within fifteen days. Otherwise the seal is returned to the company or destroyed (art. 58-1, III).
The protection is not yet applicable. The law enters into force on a date set by decree, and no later than the first day of the twelfth month following its promulgation, that is 1 February 2027 (loi n° 2026-122, art. 4).
The wording alone creates no protection. Groups wishing to benefit from the regime should prepare their internal processes now: qualification and training of the drafters, addressees, labelling and separate filing.
Using Article 145 to support foreign proceedings or arbitration
Can a French judge order Article 145 measures if the case will be heard abroad?
Yes, a French judge can order Article 145 measures in France even if the case will be heard abroad. The applicant may apply to the court in whose area the measure is to be carried out (art. 145 CPC). The measure is governed by French law, and the legitimate reason is not assessed under the foreign law governing the merits (Cass. 1re civ., 3 November 2016, n° 15-20.495).
In the Metabyte case, the claimant was a US company and one of the respondents a US company based in Indianapolis. The measure was carried out in France, under French law.
Is Article 145 available when the contract contains an arbitration clause?
Yes, an arbitration clause does not prevent Article 145 measures, as long as the arbitral tribunal has not been constituted. The request is then brought before the president of the judicial court or of the commercial court (art. 1449 CPC, applicable to international arbitration under art. 1506 CPC).
The arbitration reform introduced by décret n° 2026-741 du 6 août 2026, effective 1 January 2027, amends article 1506 but leaves its reference to article 1449 intact.
Does the French blocking statute prevent evidence gathering for foreign proceedings?
The French blocking statute prohibits gathering economic, commercial, industrial, financial or technical evidence for foreign proceedings outside the channels provided by treaties and laws in force. The text reads:
Sous réserve des traités ou accords internationaux et des lois et règlements en vigueur, il est interdit à toute personne de demander, de rechercher ou de communiquer, par écrit, oralement ou sous toute autre forme, des documents ou renseignements d’ordre économique, commercial, industriel, financier ou technique tendant à la constitution de preuves en vue de procédures judiciaires ou administratives étrangères ou dans le cadre de celles-ci.
Article 1 bis of loi n° 68-678 du 26 juillet 1968, as amended by loi n° 80-538 du 16 juillet 1980
English translation:
Subject to international treaties or agreements and to laws and regulations in force, any person is prohibited from requesting, seeking or communicating, in writing, orally or in any other form, documents or information of an economic, commercial, industrial, financial or technical nature, for the purpose of constituting evidence in view of foreign judicial or administrative proceedings or in the context thereof.
The offence carries six months’ imprisonment and a fine of 18,000 euros (art. 3 of loi n° 68-678). It is not a dead letter.
The criminal chamber of the Cour de cassation upheld a conviction and a fine of 10,000 euros against the French correspondent of the US counsel of the California Insurance Commissioner. He had approached a former director of the French insurer MAAF about the board’s decision to acquire Executive Life, outside the Hague Convention channels (Cass. crim., 12 December 2007, n° 07-83.228).
The treaty channel is the Hague Convention of 18 March 1970 on the Taking of Evidence Abroad. France declared that it would not execute letters of request for pre-trial discovery of documents. On 19 January 1987 it narrowed that declaration: it no longer applies where the documents are limitatively listed and have a direct and precise link with the subject matter of the proceedings.
Companies receiving such requests must also inform the Strategic Information and Economic Security Service (SISSE), which may give an opinion on whether the statute applies (décret n° 2022-207 du 18 février 2022).
Whether an Article 145 order obtained in France, then used abroad, falls within the reservation for « laws and regulations in force » is uncertain. Two readings compete. On the first, a French court order is by definition a lawful channel, so no offence is committed. On the second, the statute targets any gathering intended for foreign proceedings, and only treaty channels shelter it.
A ruling of the Cour de cassation on this point would settle it. No such decision has been identified. In both readings, the safest course is the same: seek legal advice before the evidence leaves France.
The reverse situation, obtaining evidence located abroad for French proceedings, is covered in our guide on taking evidence abroad (in French). By way of comparison only, a party to French proceedings may ask a US federal court for discovery under 28 U.S.C. § 1782 (Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 542 U.S. 241 (2004)). The US Supreme Court has held that private commercial arbitration falls outside that statute (ZF Automotive US, Inc. v. Luxshare, Ltd., 596 U.S. 619 (2022)).
Once the lawsuit has started: investigative measures and production orders
After the lawsuit is filed, Article 145 is no longer available for that dispute, but the judge may order any legally admissible investigative measure, at a party’s request or of the judge’s own motion (art. 143 CPC). Such measures may be ordered at any stage when the judge lacks sufficient elements to decide (art. 144 CPC). The court-appointed expert is the most common of them.
The judge may also order a party to produce a piece of evidence it holds, if necessary under a daily penalty. The judge may also order third parties to produce documents, unless there is a legitimate impediment (art. 11 CPC). The procedure against third parties is set out in articles 138 to 142 CPC.
For documents, the difference with discovery lies in precision. The document must be identified. A request to « produce all correspondence relating to the project » is the opposite of what French judges grant. At this stage, the rule against making up for a party’s failure to produce evidence applies again (art. 146 CPC). See our guides to production orders during proceedings and to a party’s failure to produce evidence (both in French).
Evidence already in your hands is a separate question. Since 2023, evidence obtained unlawfully or unfairly, such as a covert recording, is not automatically excluded in civil proceedings. The judge weighs the right to evidence against the rights infringed. Production is admitted if indispensable and if the infringement is strictly proportionate to the aim pursued (Ass. plén., 22 December 2023, n° 20-20.648).
In that case, Abaque bâtiment services had dismissed a sales manager for gross misconduct and relied on covert recordings of two meetings. The Court of Appeal excluded them as unfair. The full court of the Cour de cassation quashed that ruling. See our guide to unlawful or unfair evidence (in French).
Your next move, depending on your side
You want the evidence
Apply before warning the opponent where possible. A detailed letter before action sent months earlier can defeat the application (Cass. 2e civ., 18 January 2024, n° 21-26.001). If one has been sent, explain concretely why surprise remains necessary despite it (Cass. com., 28 January 2026, n° 24-12.153).
State the reasons for surprise in the application itself, with the facts of the case, not in general terms. The order may simply refer to the application (Cass. 2e civ., 5 March 2026, n° 23-13.723). Boilerplate fails (Cass. 2e civ., 19 November 2020, n° 19-12.086).
Target narrowly. Named custodians, a defined period, specific keywords and identified categories of documents make the order survive the challenge (Cass. 2e civ., 10 June 2021, n° 20-11.987).
Plan the calendar. For orders issued from 1 October 2026, execution must take place within three months (art. 495 CPC). The respondent then has one month from service to challenge (art. 496 CPC).
Check the destination of the evidence. If it will serve foreign proceedings, the blocking statute must be addressed before the evidence leaves France (loi n° 68-678, art. 1 bis).
Do not count on obtaining « all emails » of a company. Do not count either on your home jurisdiction’s privilege rules to shield your own French documents in a later exchange.
You received a visit
Call French counsel before handing anything over. The court officer cannot search at will and must first ask for voluntary handover (Cass. 2e civ., 16 May 2012, n° 11-17.229).
Identify privileged material on the spot: correspondence with an avocat, and, once loi n° 2026-122 is in force, in-house consultations bearing the statutory wording.
If your premises hold patient data, check that the order provides for the healthcare professional’s involvement or for escrow without access by the officer. Otherwise the order is exposed (Cass. 2e civ., 21 May 2026, n° 22-19.299).
Diarise one month from service in France. That is the deadline to challenge the order for orders issued from 1 October 2026 (art. 496 CPC). It is already the deadline before escrowed documents are released (art. R. 153-1 C. com.).
Attack the wording of the order, keyword by keyword. Generic terms are the most frequent ground for partial or total setting aside (Cass. 2e civ., 10 June 2021, n° 20-11.987).
Do not count on business secrecy as an absolute bar. It is weighed, not decisive (Cass. 2e civ., 10 June 2021, n° 20-11.987). Do not count on US or English privilege either (Cass. 1re civ., 3 November 2016, n° 15-20.495).
Drafting the mission: wording to copy, wording to avoid
Article 145 applications and orders are drafted in French. The wording below is given in French, with an English summary, and must be adapted to the practice of the court seized.
You want the court officer to recover the emails proving the diversion of a client. Wording to copy:
Se rendre au siège de la société [dénomination exacte], [adresse], solliciter la remise spontanée des documents ci-après et, avec le concours du requis et l’assistance d’un expert informatique, rechercher sur les messageries professionnelles de M. [nom] et de Mme [nom], pour la période du [date] au [date], les courriels et pièces jointes contenant l’un des mots-clés suivants : « [nom du client détourné] », « [référence du marché] », « [nom du fichier] » ; en prendre copie ; placer l’ensemble des copies sous séquestre entre les mains du commissaire de justice.
In English: named company, request for voluntary handover first, named custodians, defined period, keywords specific to the dispute, copies kept in escrow.
Wording never to write:
Ouvrir tout placard, tiroir, meuble aux fins de rechercher, de décrire, au besoin de copier ou de faire photocopier ou reproduire tout document social, fiscal, comptable, administratif, de quelque nature que ce soit.
This wording was set aside as a whole, and the documents obtained were ordered returned (Cass. 2e civ., 16 May 2012, n° 11-17.229).
Keyword list never to write:
« Google », « LinkedIn », « salarié », « accord », « avis », [prénoms des dirigeants].
Generic keywords of this kind led the Cour de cassation to quash the ruling that had upheld the order (Cass. 2e civ., 10 June 2021, n° 20-11.987).
You want to justify the ex parte route. Wording never to write, taken from the Maydex application:
Il est fort probable que, une fois informée, [la société] soit tentée de dissimuler les éléments de preuve de nature à confirmer les agissements suspectés par la requérante. […] L’effet de surprise étant l’une des conditions d’efficacité de la mesure sollicitée, la dérogation, à titre provisoire, au principe du contradictoire apparaît parfaitement justifiée.
These general statements were held insufficient, and the order was set aside (Cass. 2e civ., 19 November 2020, n° 19-12.086). The application must instead state the facts of the case that make destruction or concertation likely: evidence held on email systems and phones, simultaneous resignations, clients leaving at the same time, as in the Amplegest case (Cass. com., 28 January 2026, n° 24-12.153).
What the rule does not tell you
The rules above are general. Whether your facts amount to a legitimate reason, which keywords will hold, and how to coordinate a French visit with proceedings in New York, London or an arbitration seat depends on the file. The facts matter as much as the law, and that is where counsel comes in.
Valentin Simonnet is a member of the Paris Bar. He practises commercial litigation and white-collar criminal defence. He obtained, for the respondent, the Cour de cassation’s published ruling of 21 May 2026 on medical secrecy in Article 145 measures (n° 22-19.299), and has published more than a dozen articles in French on these measures. He spent a year of his law studies at University College London (UCL) and works in English with foreign clients.
