CL-2025-000380 - [2025] EWHC 2462 (Comm)

Fecha: 30-Sep-2025

The applicable legal principles

The applicable legal principles

The claim for contractual anti-suit relief

19.

Both sides were content to adopt the summary of the applicable principles given in QBE Europe SANV v General Espana [2022] EWHC 2062 (Comm), [10]:

The court's power to grant an ASI to restrain foreign proceedings, when brought or threatened to be brought in breach of a binding agreement to refer disputes to arbitration, is derived from section 37(1) of Senior Courts Act 1981, and it will do so when it is 'just and convenient'.

ii)

The touchstone is what the ends of justice require.

iii)

The jurisdiction to grant an ASI should be exercised with caution.

iv)

The injunction applicant must establish with a 'high degree of probability' that there is an arbitration or jurisdiction agreement which governs the dispute in question.

The court will ordinarily exercise its discretion to restrain the pursuit of proceedings brought in breach of a forum clause unless the defendant can show strong reasons to refuse the relief.

vi)

The defendant bears the burden of proving there are strong reasons.

20.

Where a party derives rights by assignment from a party to a contract where the contract is subject to an EJC, the assignee will be required to enforce the assigned rights in accordance with the EJC and can be restrained by an ASI if it brings proceedings to enforce them in some other forum (see QBE, [15]).