Anti Suit Injunction in UK Law

The fact that at some stage the foreign court has ruled in favour of its own jurisdiction is not per se a bar to an anti-suit injunction: see AES. But, as each stage is reached more will have been wasted by the abandonment of proceedings which compliance with an anti-suit injunction would bring about. That being so, the longer an action continues without any attempt to restrain it the less likely a court is to grant an injunction and considerations of comity have greater force.

If contracting parties agree to give a particular court exclusive jurisdiction to rule on claims between those parties, and a claim falling within the scope of the agreement is made in proceedings in a forum other than that which the parties have agreed, the English court will ordinarily exercise its discretion (whether by granting a stay of proceedings in England, or by restraining the prosecution of proceedings in the non-contractual forum abroad, or by such other procedural order as is appropriate in the circumstances) to secure compliance with the contractual bargain, unless the party suing in the non-contractual forum (the burden being on him) can show strong reasons for suing in that forum.

I approach the matter as follows. As a general rule, before an anti-suit injunction can properly be granted by an English court to restrain a person from pursuing proceedings in a foreign jurisdiction in cases of the kind under consideration in the present case, comity requires that the English forum should have a sufficient interest in, or connection with, the matter in question to justify the indirect interference with the foreign court which an anti-suit injunction entails.

As a broad proposition of law, an anti-suit injunction may be granted where it is oppressive or vexatious for a defendant to bring proceedings in a foreign jurisdiction but Société Nationale Industrielle Aerospatiale v Lee Kui Jak [1987] AC 871 emphasised that the mere fact that the English court refused a stay of English proceedings on the grounds of forum non conveniens did not itself justify the grant of an injunction to restrain foreign proceedings.

Whatever country it is to the courts of which the parties have agreed to submit their disputes is the country to which comity is due. It is not a matter of an English court seeking to uphold and enforce references to its own courts; an English court will uphold and enforce references to the courts of whichever country the parties agree for the resolution of their disputes. This is to uphold party autonomy not to uphold the courts of any particular country.

The English court as the court of the seat of the arbitration is necessarily an appropriate court to grant an anti-suit injunction and questions of forum conveniens do not arise. It follows, therefore, that by the choice of English seat the parties agreed that the English Court is an appropriate court to exercise the power to grant an anti-suit injunction.

Under English law, a person has no right not to be sued in a particular forum, domestic or foreign, unless there is some specific factor which gives him that right. The applicant does not have to show that the contractual forum is more appropriate than any other; the parties' contractual agreement does that for him.