Airbus Industrie GIE v Patel
Comity requires that an English court should not grant an anti-suit injunction to restrain proceedings in a foreign country unless England has a sufficient interest in, or connection with, the matter in question.
Facts
An Indian Airlines aircraft, manufactured by Airbus, a French company, crashed at Bangalore, killing British passengers. The Indian courts held that Airbus was not liable, and issued an injunction restraining the families of the British victims from suing elsewhere, but the families sued Airbus in Texas, where the law was more favourable. Airbus applied to the English court, where the families lived, for an anti-suit injunction to restrain the Texas proceedings, arguing that they were oppressive.
Legal principle
The House of Lords refused the injunction. Lord Goff said that, as a general rule, 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. The English courts were not the natural forum, which was India, and had no connection with the dispute other than the residence of the claimants. In a case where there was no alternative English forum, an injunction could not be granted to restrain proceedings in one foreign country on the ground that another foreign country was the natural forum.
Related cases on jurisdiction agreements and anti-suit injunctions
- Allianz SpA v West Tankers Inc (The Front Comor) Case C-185/07, [2009] ECR I-663
- Donohue v Armco Inc [2001] UKHL 64
- Société Nationale Industrielle Aérospatiale v Lee Kui Jak [1987] AC 871
- Turner v Grovit Case C-159/02, [2004] ECR I-3565
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