A new JLR court order from The Hague overturns an evidence raid on BYD offices, requiring the destruction of seized Ti7 files and rejecting a €500 000 penalty.
A Dutch judge has issued a decisive JLR court order that lifts a sweeping evidence seizure against Chinese automaker BYD and blocks a €500 000 (approximately R9.2 million) penalty demand. The District Court of The Hague delivered the interim ruling on 11 November 2026 and released an amended recovery judgment on 12 November 2026. Judge H.F.R. van Heemstra ordered Jaguar Land Rover Limited to instruct bailiffs and digital custodians to destroy all seized BYD files within 24 hours of formal notice.
Background of the Defender design dispute
The legal battle centres on claims from Jaguar Land Rover that the upcoming BYD Ti7 SUV copies the design of the Land Rover Defender L663. On 14 August 2026, the British automaker secured judicial permission to raid BYD offices in the Netherlands. Bailiffs and IT specialists subsequently executed raids at BYD Europe in Schiedam and BYD Nederland in Hoofddorp on 24 August 2026.
During those raids, investigators searched physical hardware and digital cloud systems for keywords including Ti7, Titanium 7, Leopard 7, and Defender. Jaguar Land Rover sought internal launch plans, financial forecasts, supplier contracts, and three-dimensional CAD files. Following the raids, Jaguar Land Rover demanded the aforementioned €500 000 in penalty payments from BYD on 4 September 2026, alleging the Chinese manufacturer delayed access to company computers and cloud platforms.
Why the judge lifted the evidence seizure
BYD challenged the raids in court, arguing that Jaguar Land Rover launched an unlawful fishing expedition into confidential business records. The judge agreed that the seizure lacked legal justification. BYD has not yet sold or offered the Ti7 SUV inside the European Union, despite a social media post from the BYD Europe chief executive announcing the vehicle’s arrival in the United Kingdom on 8 October 2026.
Because no European sales have occurred, Jaguar Land Rover has suffered no financial damage from the alleged infringement. The court ruled that companies cannot seize broad categories of commercial data to calculate damages for a potential future violation. Furthermore, Jaguar Land Rover never argued that it needed the internal files to prove the actual design infringement itself.
The JLR court order also cleared BYD of all allegations regarding non-cooperation during the August raids. Jaguar Land Rover claimed BYD staff took nearly three hours to hand over four laptops and restricted access to a local storage drive. However, the judge ruled that cooperation duties apply to remote cloud servers rather than physical devices, which bailiffs already held the authority to confiscate on site.
Regarding cloud platforms, the court found that local Dutch IT staff lacked administrative authority to unlock the Microsoft 365 Purview system without help from headquarters in China. A technician in China granted the necessary access later that afternoon. The court also noted that BYD fulfilled its legal duty on the Tencent WeCom messaging platform by providing valid login credentials, even though the software lacked a bulk export function. The bailiff also failed to record specific warnings and deadlines in the official raid reports, making any penalty enforcement invalid.
Financial penalties and next legal steps
The recovery judgment on 12 November 2026 corrected a clerical error in the original ruling that had accidentally assigned court fees to BYD. Under the amended JLR court order, Jaguar Land Rover must pay €25 376,57 (approximately R470 000) toward BYD’s legal expenses within 14 days. If Jaguar Land Rover attempts any further enforcement actions under the overturned seizure warrant, it will face an immediate penalty of €500 000 per violation.
While BYD won this interim procedural victory, the broader intellectual property battle continues. Jaguar Land Rover has initiated separate substantive lawsuits in The Hague and Rotterdam alleging registered design infringement, copyright violations, and slavish imitation of the Defender.
