Court of Appeal to determine whether Microsoft missed court filing deadline

• Procedural point of practical importance to all legal practitioners engaged in commercial litigation
• Vice-President of the Court of Appeal has directed that the question as to whether the correct filing time is 4:30pm or 23:59pm shall be determined at an oral hearing.

London, 22 August 2022: ValueLicensing, a UK-based preowned software licence reseller, announced that a date has now been set by the Court of Appeal for 9 November for an oral hearing to consider the issue of the correct filing time under the procedural rules applying to commercial litigation.

This unusual situation arose after lawyers for Microsoft filed documents requesting permission to appeal electronically at 4:52pm on 6 June 2022, via the Electronic Working Scheme (known as CE File), which is mandatory. Microsoft is the defendant in a standalone High Court damages claim brought by ValueLiensing in April 2021 alleging that the Seattle-based multinational abused its dominant position when it engaged in conduct that eliminated the vast majority of preowned software licences from the market.