Abstract
The Chapter assesses the compatibility of anti-suit injunctions issued in support of arbitration with European Union (EU) law and, in particular, with the Brussels regime. First of all, the Chapter describes the nature of anti-suit injunctions, and their use in the practice of English courts. Against this background, the chapter then provides a critical analysis of the case-law of the Court of Justice of the EU on this topic, and the subsequent reception of that case-law in the Member States. The final part of the Chapter evaluates the relevance of the innovations brought about by the Brussels I bis Regulation, and discusses the distinction between injunctions issued by a Member State court and injunctions issued by an arbitral tribunal in the form of an award. The potential impact of Brexit on the current state of the law is also considered.
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Notes
- 1.
It must be acknowledged that the parties can theoretically enter into a non-exclusive arbitration agreement, which enables them to commence arbitration (thus binding the respondent, if the claimant starts arbitral proceedings) but does not prevent access to state courts: Benihana of Tokyo, LLC v. Benihana, Inc., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 99933 (S.D.N.Y. July 22, 2014). This type of clause, however, does not seem to be widely used in practice, as it not afford the parties any certainty as to the forum where future disputes will be resolved.
- 2.
See, in this respect, the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights: Deweer v Belgium, Application no. 6903/75, 27 February 1980; Lithgow and others v the United Kingdom, Application no. 9006/80; 9262/81; 9263/81; 9265/81; 9266/81; 9313/81; 9405/81, 8 July 1986; Pastore v Italy, Application no. 46483/99, 25 May 1999; Transado—Transportes Fluviais do Sado, S.A. v Portugal, Application no. 35943/02, 16 December 2003; Eiffage S.A. and others v Switzerland, Application no. 1742/05, 15 September 2009; Tabbane v Switzerland, Application no. 41069/12, 1 March 2016.
- 3.
The parties, of course, remain free to disregard the agreement to arbitrate, if all of them agree to do so; this is implicit in Article II of the New York Convention, which does not require the court seized in violation of an agreement to arbitrate to decline jurisdiction ex officio, in the absence of any objection as to the jurisdiction of the court.
- 4.
Born (2014, pp. 1270‒1306).
- 5.
See Article 1448(1) of the French Code of Civil Procedure: ‘Lorsqu’un litige relevant d’une convention d’arbitrage est porté devant une juridiction de l’Etat, celle-ci se déclare incompétente sauf si le tribunal arbitral n’est pas encore saisi et si la convention d’arbitrage est manifestement nulle ou manifestement inapplicable’.
- 6.
One of the few examples of alleged disregard of an international instrument of private international law escalating to the level of an inter-state dispute concerned not arbitration, but a court judgment circulating under the Lugano Convention: see International Court of Justice (ICJ) case Jurisdiction and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (Belgium v Switzerland), case removed from the ICJ List on 5 April 2011. For an analysis of the role of the New York Convention as an instrument of public international law, see Paulsson (2016).
- 7.
The same holds true for choice-of-court agreements, as discussed in Sect. 4.1 below. This contribution, however, focuses in particular on the use of anti-suit injunctions as a means of enforcing agreements to arbitrate.
- 8.
- 9.
As mentioned above, some civil law jurisdictions aim to ensure the same high level of protection of the parties’ agreement to arbitrate by recognising the negative effect of the competence-competence doctrine, whereby any analysis as to the validity and scope of the arbitration clause on the part the seized court is generally pre-empted by the mere fact that one of the parties objects to the jurisdiction of that court and requests that the dispute be referred to arbitration. It is important to acknowledge, however, that this mechanism does not protect the arbitration clause if the ‘torpedo’ action is brought in another jurisdiction, which does not adopt such an arbitration-friendly interpretation of competence-competence.
- 10.
While the distinction between these two legal ‘families’ does entail some unavoidable and inaccurate simplification, it is useful for the purposes of this Chapter, to grasp the basic contours of two different approaches as to the nature of the arbitration agreement.
- 11.
The same observations appear to be largely applicable to choice-of-court clauses which, however, fall outside of the scope of this Chapter.
- 12.
Satta (1931, p. 50).
- 13.
Lévy (2005, p. 115).
- 14.
Merkin and Flannery (2014, pp. 187‒188):
The juridical basis of the injunction is the enforcement of both a positive right to have any disputes resolved only by way of the contractually agreed forum (arbitration proceedings), and a closely related but legally distinct and concomitant negative right not to be sued in any other forum. When viewed as obligations, the negative-positive dichotomy is reversed, but is still one way of looking at the issue—there is a positive obligation to bring proceedings by way of the contractually agreed forum (arbitration), which carries with it the negative obligation not to bring proceedings in another forum.
- 15.
- 16.
Pena Copper Mines Ltd v Rio Tinto Co Ltd (1911) 105 LT 846.
- 17.
Gaillard (2010).
- 18.
See Briggs (2014, p. 390), according to whom an anti-suit injunction ‘looks very much like an act of interference with proceedings before (a) foreign court, and the appearance really does not mislead’; see also Andrews (2013, p. 229): ‘[a]lthough the respondent is the only party subject to the injunction, it might be perceived that the foreign court is indirectly affected’.
- 19.
British Airways Board v Laker Airways Ltd [1985] A.C. 58, 95.
- 20.
Sokana Industries Inc v Freyre & Co Inc [1994] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 57, 66, per Colman J.
- 21.
Aggeliki Charis Compania Maritima SA v Pagnan SpA (The Angelic Grace) [1995] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 87. See also Lord Mance in AES Ust-Kamenogorsk Hydropower Plant LLP v Ust-Kamenogorsk Hydropower Plant JSC [2013] UKSC 35, para 31, with reference to the preclusive effect of an arbitration agreement in respect of court litigation: ‘the negative aspect is as fundamental as the positive. There is no reason why a party to either should be free to engage the other party in a different forum merely because neither party wishes to bring proceedings in the agreed forum’. In the same vein, with reference to exclusive choice-of-court agreements, see Donohue v Armco Inc [2001] UKHL 64; [2002] 1 All ER 749.
- 22.
Agreement governed by English law, indicating London as the seat of arbitration.
- 23.
AES Ust-Kamenogorsk Hydropower Plant LLP v Ust-Kamenogorsk Hydropower Plant JSC [2013] UKSC 35, para 4.
- 24.
The expression ‘Brussels regime’ will be used in this Chapter to encompass not only the current Brussels I bis Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters), but also the original Brussels I Regulation (Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 of 22 December 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters) and the 1968 Brussels Convention. Unless the Chapter expressly draws a differentiation among these instruments, the observations concerning the ‘regime’ should be read as applicable to all of these instruments in a comparable fashion.
- 25.
Case C-159/02, Gregory Paul Turner v Felix Fareed Ismail Grovit, Harada Ltd and Changepoint SA, ECLI:EU:C:2004:228 (hereafter ‘Turner’).
- 26.
Turner, para 19.
- 27.
Turner, para 17.
- 28.
Turner, para 17.
- 29.
Turner, para 20.
- 30.
Turner, para 20.
- 31.
Turner, para 28.
- 32.
Turner, para 28.
- 33.
See Article 1(2)(d) of the Brussels I bis Regulation, Article 1(2)(d) of the Brussels I Regulation and Article 1(4) of the 1968 Brussels Convention.
- 34.
Case C-185/07, Allianz SpA and Generali Assicurazioni Generali SpA v West Tankers Inc., ECLI:EU:C:2009:69 (hereafter ‘West Tankers’).
- 35.
Case C-190/89, Marc Rich & Co. AG v Società Italiana Impianti PA, ECLI:EU:C:1991:319 (hereafter ‘Rich’).
- 36.
Case C-391/95, Van Uden Maritime BV, trading as Van Uden Africa Line v Kommanditgesellschaft in Firma Deco-Line and Another, ECLI:EU:C:1998:543 (hereafter ‘Van Uden’).
- 37.
Corresponding to Article 35 of the Brussels I bis Regulation.
- 38.
Notably, the characterization of court-issued provisional measures as legitimately ‘parallel’ to the arbitral proceedings is consistent with the regulatory approach adopted in many arbitration-friendly legal systems in this respect: see e.g. Article 17 J of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law.
- 39.
Van Uden, para 33.
- 40.
West Tankers, para 21.
- 41.
West Tankers, para 24.
- 42.
West Tankers, para 26.
- 43.
West Tankers, para 27.
- 44.
National Navigation Co v Endesa Generacion SA (The Wadi Sudr) [2009] EWCA Civ 1397; [2010] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 193.
- 45.
Interestingly, other Member State courts before the CJEU ruling in West Tankers had reached the opposite conclusion: Legal Department du Ministère de la Justice de la République d’Irak v Sociétés Fincantieri Cantieri Navali Italiani, Finmeccanica et Armamenti e Aerospazio, 15 June 2006, Paris Court of Appeal (2007) 1 Rev Arb 87:
Une décision italienne présentée à l’exequatur du juge français, limitée à la seule constatation de l’invalidité de la convention d’arbitrage et exclusive de tout jugement sur le fond de l’affaire, lequel n’est d’ailleurs pas encore aujourd’hui tranché par le juge italien porte sur un litige qui est extérieur au champ d’application de la Convention de Bruxelles.
- 46.
Hess et al. (2007, pp. 49‒70).
- 47.
See e.g. Article 18 of the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules, entrusting the task of determining the place of arbitration to the tribunal, or Article 18 of the 2017 International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Rules, giving that power to the administering institution itself.
- 48.
See Article 1448(1) of the French Code of Civil Procedure.
- 49.
In theory, a possible corrective would be to allow each Member State to determine whether the ruling as to the validity and scope of the clause should be made by the competent juge d’appui or by the tribunal itself. This, however, would in practice mean delegating a decision which has effects on the jurisdiction of a Member State court (namely, the court seized in alleged violation of the agreement to arbitrate) to an adjudicative body which—according to the case law of the CJEU from Nordsee (case C-102/81, Nordsee Deutsche Hochseefischerei GmbH v Reederei Mond Hochseefischerei Nordstern AG & Co. KG and Reederei Friedrich Busse Hochseefischerei Nordstern AG & Co. KG, ECLI:EU:C:1982:107) to Achmea (case C-284/16, Slowakische Republik v Achmea BV, ECLI:EU:C:2018:158)—is not bound by the obligation of mutual trust. Furthermore, such a solution may jeopardise the effectiveness of EU law, inasmuch as the same legal provision would receive two significantly different types of application in different Member States, depending on the approach that each single Member State adopts regarding the doctrine of competence-competence.
- 50.
It does not seem to be relevant whether the source of these binding effects lies in the fact that the arbitration was seated in the requested State itself, or whether the award (made in a third EU or non-EU Member State) has been recognized in the State that is now requested to recognize the incompatible court judgment.
- 51.
See however for the potential public policy relevance of some areas of EU law case C-126/97, Eco Swiss China Time Ltd v Benetton International NV, ECLI:EU:C:1999:269.
- 52.
Ortolani (2015).
- 53.
Rich.
- 54.
Case C-536/13, ‘Gazprom’ OAO v Lietuvos Respublika, ECLI:EU:C:2015:316 (hereafter ‘Gazprom (2015)’).
- 55.
Notably, this is the case for the UNCITRAL Model Law, as a result of the 2006 revision: see Article 17(2)(b), empowering the tribunal to order a party to ‘take action that would prevent, or refrain from taking action that is likely to cause, current or imminent harm or prejudice to the arbitral process itself’. See Ortolani (2019).
- 56.
Gazprom (2015), para 18.
- 57.
ECLI:EU:C:2014:2414 (hereafter ‘Gazprom (AG)’), para 91.
- 58.
Gazprom (AG), para 136.
- 59.
West Tankers, para 23.
- 60.
Gazprom (AG), paras 36‒37.
- 61.
Gazprom (AG), para 40.
- 62.
West Tankers, para 20.
- 63.
Gazprom (AG), para 33.
- 64.
Betancourt (2018).
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Ortolani, P. (2020). Anti-suit Injunctions in Support of Arbitration and EU Law. In: Chen, L., Janssen, A. (eds) Dispute Resolution in China, Europe and World. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 79. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42974-4_8
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