Many factors require businesses to document their relations with business partners and customers. Production of these documents or the disclosure of information in them is usually not intended and businesses in civil law jurisdictions do not expect that they may have to produce them. Such documents or information may, however, be important in legal proceedings. Data protection laws have introduced new potential tools to obtain documents and gather information outside legal proceedings on the merits. This article examines the bases for requests for production of documents and disclosure of information in civil proceedings under Swiss law, rights for production of documents and disclosure under the Swiss Data Protection Act, and the uses and abuses of the data protection law for these purposes. The issues discussed here not only exist in Switzerland, but in other civil law jurisdictions.