Flexible & adaptable to many situations, the Norwich Pharmacal order remains as useful as ever, says Jonathan Cohen
- Norwich Pharmacal orders for disclosure are granted against third parties innocently caught up in wrongdoing.
- They have widespread application and have been further developed in case law.
A Norwich Pharmacal order may be an old remedy, but it still has modern application. Its use in the past three years alone demonstrates its continuing flexibility. Norwich Pharmacal orders are court orders to disclose information or documents, granted against third parties who have become mixed up in wrongdoing through no fault of their own. They date back to a 1974 House of Lords case concerning the Norwich Pharmaceutical Company, Norwich Pharmacal v Customs and Excise Commissioners [1974] AC 133, [1973] 2 All ER 943.
The case
Norwich Pharmacal was the victim of a patent infringement. It knew 30 consignments of the compound, Furazolidone, which was covered by its patent, had been imported into the UK without licence and therefore in breach of its patent. It did not, however, know who was doing the
