Ryanair DAC v Skyscanner Ltd & Ors (Approved)

Factual and Procedural Background

The judgment concerns discovery applications in ongoing litigation between Plaintiff and Defendants regarding alleged unauthorized use of automated software systems to access Plaintiff's price, flight, and time (PFT) data from Plaintiff's website. Plaintiff claims breaches including contract, trademark infringement, copyright, passing off, conversion, conspiracy, and other torts, seeking damages and injunctive relief primarily to restrain Defendants from breaching a Licence Agreement or Plaintiff's terms of use.

Defendants deny the allegations and counterclaim that Plaintiff is abusing a dominant market position in violation of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). The proceedings began with a plenary summons issued in December 2019, followed by interlocutory motions for injunctions which were refused by the High Court and affirmed on appeal.

Subsequently, Plaintiff sought to strike out parts of Defendants' counterclaim and to order a modular trial, both applications were refused. The present discovery motions, issued in July 2022 by both parties, seek multiple categories of documents relevant to liability and competition law aspects of the case. The discovery hearing took four days, with extensive affidavits and submissions. The court was tasked with resolving disputes over categories of discovery not agreed by the parties.

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether the various categories of documents sought by Plaintiff and Defendants in their discovery applications are relevant and necessary for disposing fairly of the matter or for saving costs.
2. The scope and limits of discovery in relation to allegations of unauthorized screen scraping, breach of licence agreements, and competition law claims concerning abuse of dominant position under Article 102 TFEU.
3. The appropriateness of limiting discovery by sampling or temporal restrictions to avoid undue burden or disproportionate requests.
4. The admissibility and relevance of expert affidavits and the impact of those on the scope of discovery.
5. Whether certain categories of discovery, particularly those involving technical details of anti-screen scraping measures and pricing data, are disproportionate or irrelevant.

Arguments of the Parties

Plaintiff's Arguments

• Defendants engaged in unauthorized use of automated software to access Plaintiff’s PFT data beyond the licensed API.
• Discovery of extensive categories of documents is necessary to prove liability and quantify damages.
• Requests for discovery relating to Defendants’ use of GitHub and other technical systems are justified despite Defendants’ objections.
• Discovery relating to Defendants’ competition law claims is essential given the counterclaim alleging abuse of dominant position.
• Discovery of documents showing Defendants’ pricing practices, sales, and conversion rates is critical to assess damages and liability.
• Requests for documents evidencing disparagement and consumer complaints against Defendants are relevant to the case.

Defendants' Arguments

• Defendants deny unauthorized screen scraping and assert that Plaintiff’s claims are barred by competition law.
• Discovery requests by Plaintiff are overly broad, disproportionate, and unduly burdensome, especially regarding extensive technical and commercial data.
• Requests for documents relating to technical anti-screen scraping measures by Plaintiff are excessive and could prejudice Plaintiff’s position.
• Defendants seek discovery of documents supporting their competition law counterclaim, including market share data, economic analyses, and documents evidencing abuse of dominant position.
• Defendants object to certain discovery categories as speculative, vague, or irrelevant, particularly those concerning pricing data and investments not directly linked to pleaded claims.
• Defendants emphasize the need for temporal and subject-matter limitations on discovery to prevent excessive burden.

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court undertook a detailed, category-by-category analysis of the discovery requests, balancing the parties’ competing interests and the principles of relevance, necessity, proportionality, and burden. The court recognized the complex factual and legal matrix, involving technical issues of data access, intellectual property claims, and competition law allegations.

For Plaintiff’s discovery requests, the court generally ordered discovery of documents that were sufficiently specific, relevant to the issues of unauthorized access, contractual breaches, and damages quantification, and not unduly burdensome. The court approved the use of sampling for large data sets to reduce burden, consistent with precedent.

The court rejected overly broad or speculative categories, particularly those that would impose excessive burdens without clear necessity, such as extensive searches for documents containing the Plaintiff’s trademark in all contexts or detailed technical descriptions of Plaintiff’s anti-screen scraping mechanisms.

On Defendants’ counterclaim and competition law-related discovery, the court ordered broad discovery of documents relating to market share, dominance, pricing, and competitive effects, emphasizing the need for a five-year temporal scope to capture relevant data before the COVID-19 pandemic. The court accepted that these categories are central to the counterclaim and necessary for a fair trial.

The court was attentive to the parties’ expert affidavits, considering the economic analyses in determining the scope and limits of discovery. It admitted supplementary affidavits to ensure fairness in the evidential process.

Where categories were vague or unrelated to pleaded claims, or where the party seeking discovery failed to demonstrate necessity, the court declined to order discovery. The court also accepted agreed formulations and temporal limits where parties reached consensus.

Overall, the court sought to ensure discovery was tailored to the issues in dispute, avoiding fishing expeditions and undue burden, while enabling the parties to obtain evidence necessary to advance or defend their claims.

Holding and Implications

The court’s final decision was to ORDER DISCOVERY in respect of numerous specified categories of documents sought by both Plaintiff and Defendants, subject to agreed or court-imposed limitations on scope and temporal range. Several categories were refused where requests were disproportionate, speculative, or irrelevant to pleaded claims.

The ruling clarifies the application of established discovery principles in complex commercial litigation involving intellectual property and competition law claims. It emphasizes the importance of proportionality and necessity in discovery, endorses the use of sampling to reduce burden, and confirms that discovery must be closely tied to the issues in dispute.

The decision directly affects the parties by defining the documentary evidence to be exchanged, thereby shaping the evidential landscape for the trial. No new legal precedent was established; rather, the court applied settled principles to the facts and procedural posture of the case.