Jaguar Land Rover has been ordered by a Dutch court to destroy files seized from Chinese carmaker BYD's offices in the Netherlands, in the first setback for the British company in its legal fight over claims that the BYD Ti7 copies the Land Rover Defender.

The District Court of The Hague issued the preliminary ruling on 11 November 2026, lifting an evidence seizure carried out in August and directing Jaguar Land Rover, known as JLR, to instruct the court-appointed custodian holding the material to destroy it within 24 hours of formal service of the ruling.

The ruling does not decide whether the Ti7 infringes the Defender's design. That question remains the subject of separate proceedings, but the decision removes a key piece of evidence JLR had hoped to use.

What the court ordered

Judge H.F.R. van Heemstra, ruling in summary proceedings, ordered JLR to destroy all of the seized material or face a penalty of €50,000 for every hour of delay, up to a maximum of €500,000. JLR must also give BYD independent confirmation that the files have been destroyed within 24 hours of their destruction.

The court rejected JLR's request for €500,000 in penalty payments from BYD over alleged non-compliance with the original seizure order, and ordered JLR to pay BYD's legal costs of €25,376.57. A corrected version of the ruling issued on 12 November fixed a clerical error in the original text concerning those costs.

The court also barred JLR from taking any further enforcement action under the original seizure authorisation. Because the case was heard in summary proceedings, the judge's findings are provisional and could differ from the outcome of a full trial, but the ruling is immediately enforceable even if it is appealed.

Why the seizure was lifted

The judge found that JLR did not need the seized files to argue that the Ti7 copies the Defender, and that the records were not needed to calculate any damages either. The court noted that it was not disputed between the parties that BYD does not currently offer the Ti7 for sale in the European Union, so the alleged infringement cannot yet have caused JLR any damage there.

Court-appointed bailiffs seized the material in August from BYD offices in Schiedam and Hoofddorp after JLR obtained an ex parte order, meaning BYD had no opportunity to challenge the seizure beforehand. The records included Ti7 launch plans and technical and financial information, as well as material relating to the Defender. The raids only became public in early November.

The wider Defender dispute

JLR alleges that the Ti7, a boxy seven-seat plug-in hybrid sold in China under BYD's Fangchengbao sub-brand since September 2025, is a slavish imitation of the Defender and infringes its copyright and design rights. The company is reported to suspect that BYD dismantled a Defender to reverse-engineer parts of the vehicle.

The main claims remain open. JLR is pursuing a claim over the Defender's European Union design rights in The Hague, and separate copyright and slavish-imitation claims in Rotterdam. Neither court has yet ruled on whether the Ti7 actually copies the Defender.

What happens next

BYD is pressing ahead with the Ti7's launch in Britain, with UK pricing announced from £47,995 for the seven-seat Ti7 Excellence AWD. Showroom arrivals are scheduled for November 2026, with customer deliveries expected from January 2027.

The ruling is an early win for BYD in a dispute that pits Britain's best-known off-road nameplate against China's largest carmaker, and it underlines how hard it can be to use aggressive evidence seizures in European design cases before any product has reached the market. JLR has not said whether it will appeal the destruction order.

Sources: Auto Express and CarNewsChina.