Excalibur Ventures LLC v Texas Keystone Inc and other companies [2011] EWHC 1624 (Comm), [2011] All ER (D) 224 (Jun)
The English courts had jurisdiction under the Senior Courts Act 1981 to grant injunctions restraining arbitrations where the seat of the arbitration was in a foreign jurisdiction, although it was a power that was only exercised in exceptional circumstances and with caution. An English court would be particularly slow to restrain arbitration proceedings where there was an agreement for the arbitration to have its seat in a foreign jurisdiction and the parties had unquestionably agreed to the foreign arbitration clause. Questions relating to arbitrability or jurisdiction, or to staying the arbitration, might in appropriate circumstances be left to the foreign courts having supervisory jurisdiction over the arbitration.
Nonetheless, in exceptional cases, the court might exercise its power under s 37 of the 1981 Act to grant such an injunction. Despite the doctrine of “Kompetenz-kompetenz” or “competence-competence” (the ability of an arbitral tribunal to determine its own jurisdiction even where challenged), the English court retained the jurisdiction to determine the issue as to whether there ever had been an
