Andrew Otchie reflects on the approach to granting an anti-anti suit injunction
- The jurisdiction to grant a final injunction to prevent the breach of an arbitration clause is provided by s 37(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981.
- Where foreign proceedings are brought in breach of an arbitration clause, the court will “ordinarily” grant an anti-suit injunction to restrain those proceedings unless there are “strong reasons” not to do so.
- The burden of proof is on the party in breach of the arbitration clause to show that there are strong reasons why an injunction should not be granted.
- Where the foreign proceedings are brought in breach of an exclusive jurisdiction or arbitration clause, anti-anti-suit injunctions are frequently granted.
The fight to protect the sanctity of a commodities contract was played out in the Rolls Buildings recently in the Commercial Court before Hamblen J, in Ecom Agroindustrial Corp Ltd v Mosharaf Composite Textile Mill Ltd [2013] EWHC 1267, [2013] All ER (D) 294 (May). When a contract between the buyer and seller of raw cotton provided for all disputes to be resolved by arbitration, and
