Tag Archive for: anti-suit injunction

No role for anti-suit injunctions under the TTPA to enforce exclusive jurisdiction agreements

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Australian and New Zealand courts have developed a practice of managing trans-Tasman proceedings in a way that recognises the close relationship between the countries, and that aids in the effective and efficient resolution of cross-border disputes. This has been the case especially since the implementation of the Agreement on Trans-Tasman Court Proceedings and Regulatory Enforcement, which was entered into for the purposes of setting up an integrated scheme of civil jurisdiction and judgments.  A key feature of the scheme is that it seeks to “streamline the process for resolving civil proceedings with a trans-Tasman element in order to reduce costs and improve efficiency” (Trans-Tasman Proceedings Act 2010 (TTPA), s 3(1)(a)). There have been many examples of Australian and New Zealand courts working to achieve this goal.

Despite the closeness of the trans-Tasman relationship, one question that had remained uncertain was whether the TTPA regime allows for the grant of an anti-suit injunction to stop or prevent proceedings that have been brought in breach of an exclusive jurisdiction agreement. The enforcement of exclusive jurisdiction agreements is explicitly protected in the regime, which adopted the approach of the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements in anticipation of Australia and New Zealand signing up to the Convention. Section 28 of the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Act 2010 (NZ) and s 22 of the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Act 2010 (Cth) provide that a court must not restrain a person from commencing or continuing a civil proceeding across the Tasman “on the grounds that [the other court] is not the appropriate forum for the proceeding”. In the secondary literature, different opinions have been expressed whether this provision extends to injunctions on the grounds that the other court is not the appropriate forum due to the existence of an exclusive jurisdiction agreement: see Mary Keyes “Jurisdiction Clauses in New Zealand Law” (2019) 50 VUWLR 631 at 633-4; Maria Hook and Jack Wass The Conflict of Laws in New Zealand (LexisNexis, 2020) at [2.445].

The New Zealand High Court has now decided that, in its view, there is no place for anti-suit injunctions under the TTPA regime: A-Ward Ltd v Raw Metal Corp Pty Ltd [2024] NZHC 736 at [4]. Justice O’Gorman reasoned that the TTPA involves New Zealand and Australian courts applying “mirror provisions to determine forum disputes, based on confidence in each other’s judicial institutions” (at [4]), and that anti-suit injunctions can have “no role to play where countries have agreed on judicial cooperation in the allocation and exercise of jurisdiction” (at [17]).

A-Ward Ltd, a New Zealand company, sought an interim anti-suit injunction to stop proceedings brought against it by Raw Metal Corp Pty Ltd, an Australian company, in the Federal Court of Australia. The dispute related to the supply of shipping container tilters from A-Ward to Raw Metal. A-Ward’s terms and conditions had included an exclusive jurisdiction clause selecting the courts of New Zealand, as well as a New Zealand choice of law clause. In its Australian proceedings, Raw Metal sought damages for misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (CCA). A-Ward brought proceedings in New Zealand seeking damages for breach of its trade terms, including the jurisdiction clause, as well as an anti-suit injunction.

O’Gorman J’s starting point was to identify the different common law tests that courts had applied when determining an application to the court to stay its own proceedings, based on the existence (or not) of an exclusive jurisdiction clause. While Spiliada principles applied in the absence of such a clause, The Eleftheria provided the relevant test to determine the enforceability of an exclusive jurisdiction clause: at [16]. The alternative to a stay was to seek an anti-suit injunction, which, however, was a controversial tool, because of its potential to “interfere unduly with a foreign court controlling its own processes” (at [17]).

Having set out the competing views in the secondary literature, the Court concluded that anti-suit injunctions were not available to enforce jurisdiction agreements otherwise falling within the scope of the TTPA, based on the following reason (at [34]):

  1. The term “appropriate forum” in ss 28 (NZ) and s 22 (Aus) of the respective Acts could not, “as a matter of reasonable interpretation”, be restricted to questions of appropriate forum in the absence of an exclusive jurisdiction agreement. This was not how the term had been used in the common law (see The Eleftheria).
  2. The structure of the TTPA regime reinforced this point, because it is on an application under s 22 (NZ)/ s 17 (Aus), for a stay of proceedings on the basis that the other court is the more appropriate forum, that a court must give effect to an exclusive jurisdiction agreement under s 25 (NZ)/ s 20 (Aus).
  3. Sections 25 (NZ) and 20 (Aus) already provided strong protection to exclusive choice of court agreements, and introducing additional protection by way of anti-suit relief “would only create uncertainty, inefficiency, and the risk of inconsistency, all of which the TTPA regime was designed to avoid”.
  4. The availability of anti-suit relief would “rest on the assumption that the courts in each jurisdiction might reach a different result, giving a parochial advantage”. This, however, would be “inconsistent with the entire basis for the TTPA regime – that the courts apply the same codified tests and place confidence in each other’s judicial institutions”.
  5. Australian case law (Great Southern Loans v Locator Group [2005] NSWSC 438), to the effect that anti-suit injunctions continue to be available domestically as between Australian courts, was distinguishable because there was no express provision for exclusive choice of court agreements, which is what “makes a potentially conflicting common law test unpalatable”.
  6. Retaining anti-suit injunctions to enforce exclusive jurisdiction agreements would be inconsistent with the concern underpinning s 28 (NZ)/ s 22 (Aus) about “someone trying to circumvent the trans-Tasman regime as a whole”.
  7. The availability of anti-suit relief would defeat the purpose of the scheme to prevent duplication of proceedings.
  8. More generally, anti-suit injunctions “have no role to play where countries have agreed on judicial cooperation in the allocation and exercise of jurisdiction”.

The Court further concluded that, even if the TTPA did not exclude the power to order an anti-suit injunction, there was no basis for doing so in this case in relation to Raw Metal’s claim under the CCA (at [35]). There was “nothing invalid or unconscionable about Australia’s policy choice” to prevent parties from contracting out of their obligations under the CCA, even though New Zealand law (in the form of the Fair Trading Act 1986) might now follow a different policy. The TTPA regime included exceptions to the enforcement of exclusive jurisdiction agreements. Here, A-Ward seemed to have anticipated that, from the perspective of the Australian court, enforcement of the New Zealand jurisdiction clause would have fallen within one of these exceptions, and the High Court of Australia’s observations in Karpik v Carnival plc [2023] HCA 39 at [40] seemed to be consistent with this. The “entirely orthodox position” seemed to be that the Federal Court in Australia “would regard itself as having jurisdiction to determine the CCA claim, unconstrained by the choice of law and court” (at [35]).

Time will tell whether Australian courts will agree with the High Court’s emphatic rejection of anti-suit relief under the TTPA as being inconsistent with the cooperative purpose of the scheme. The parallel debate within the context of the Hague Choice of Court Convention – which does not specifically exclude anti-suit injunctions – may be instructive here: Mukarrum Ahmed “Exclusive choice of court agreements: some issues on the Hague Convention on choice of court agreements and its relationship with the Brussels I recast especially anti-suit injunctions, concurrent proceedings and the implications of BREXIT” (2017) 13 Journal of Private International Law 386. Despite O’Gorman J’s powerful reasoning, her judgment may not be the last word on this important issue.

From a New Zealand perspective, the judgment is also of interest because of its restrained approach to the availability of anti-suit relief more generally. Even assuming that the Australian proceedings were, in fact, in breach of the New Zealand jurisdiction clause, O’Gorman J would not have been prepared to grant an injunction as a matter of course. In this respect, the judgment may be seen as a departure from previous case law. In Maritime Mutual Insurance Association (NZ) Ltd v Silica Sandport Inc [2023] NZHC 793, for example, the Court granted an anti-suit injunction to compel compliance with an arbitration agreement, without inquiring into the foreign court’s perspective and its reasons for taking jurisdiction. O’Gorman J’s more nuanced approach is to be welcomed (for criticism of Maritime Mutual, see here on The Conflict of Laws in New Zealand blog).

A more challenging aspect of the judgment is the choice of law analysis, and the Court’s focus on the potential concurrent or cumulative application of foreign and domestic statutes (at [28]-[31], [35]). The Court said that, to determine whether a foreign statute is applicable, the New Zealand court can ask whether the statute applies on its own terms (following Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections v Fujitsu New Zealand Ltd [2023] NZHC 3598, which I criticised here on The Conflict of Laws in New Zealand blog, also published as [2024] NZLJ 22). It is not entirely clear how this point was relevant to the issue of the anti-suit injunction. The Judge’s reasoning seemed to be that, from the New Zealand court’s perspective, the Australian court’s application of the CCA was appropriate as a matter of statutory interpretation and/or choice of law, which meant that the proceedings were not unconscionable or unjust (at [35]).

The jurisdictional hurdles of s 26 of the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Act 2010 (Cth), in the context of interim anti-enforcement relief in aid of New Zealand proceedings

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The New Zealand High Court recently granted a permanent anti-enforcement injunction in relation to a default judgment from Kentucky in Kea Investments Ltd v Wikeley Family Trustee Limited [2023] NZHC 3260. The plaintiff, a British Virgin Islands company, claimed that the defendants had committed a tortious conspiracy against it because the Kentucky default judgment was based on fabricated claims intended to defraud it. The defendants were a New Zealand company, Wikeley Family Trustee Ltd (WFTL), and persons associated with the company.

In an undefended judgment, the High Court granted the injunction, awarded damages for the costs incurred in the foreign proceedings (referring to cases such as Union Discount Co Ltd v Zoller [2001] EWCA Civ 1755, [2002] 1 WLR 1517 by analogy), and issued a declaration that the Kentucky judgment would not be recognised or enforceable in New Zealand. As noted previously on this blog (see here), the case is an interesting example of “the fraud exception to the principles of comity” (Kea Investments Ltd v Wikeley (No 2) [2023] QSC 215 at [192]).

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Anti-Suit Injunction Issued in China: Comity, Pragmatism and Rule of Law

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1 Anti-suit Injunctions issued in Huawei v Conversant and Xiaomi v Intel Digital

Chinese courts have issued two anti-suit injunctions recently in cross-border patent cases. The first is the Supreme Court’s ruling in Huawei v Conversant, (2019) Zui Gao Fa Zhi Min Zhong 732, 733 and 734 No 1. (here) Huawei, a Chinese telecom giant brought an action on 25 Jan 2018 in Jiangsu Nanjing Intermediate Court requiring determination of FRAND royalty for all Chinese patents held by Conversant that is essential to 2G, 3G and 4G standard (standard essential patent or ‘SEP’). Conversant brought another action in Düsseldorf, Germany on 20 April 2018 claiming Huawei infringed its German patents of the same patent family. On 16 Sept 2019, the Chinese court ordered a relatively low rate pursuant to Chinese standard and Conversant appealed to the Supreme Court on 18 Nov 2019. On 27 Aug 2020, the German Court held Huawei liable and approved the FRAND fee proposed by Conversant, which is 18.3 times of the rate determined by the Chinese court. Pursuant to Huawei’s application, the Chinese Supreme Court restrained Conversant from applying the German court to enforce the German judgment. The reasons include: the enforcement of the Düsseldorf judgment would have a negative impact on the case pending in Chinese court; an injunction is necessary to prevent irreparable harm to Huawei; the damage to Conversant by granting the injunction is significantly smaller than the damage to Huawei if not granting injunction; injunction will not harm public interest or international comity.

On 9 June 2020, Chinese company Xiaomi brought the proceedings in the Wuhan Intermediate Court requesting the determination of the global FRAND rate for SEPs held by the US company, Inter Digital. On 29 July, Intel Digital sued Xiaomi in Delhi High Court in India for infringement of Indian patents of the same patent family and asking for injunction. The Wuhan Intermediate Court ordered Inter Digital to stop the injunction application in India and prohibited Intel Digital from applying injunctions, applying for the determination of FRAND rate or enforcing junctions already received in any countries. (Xiaomi v Intel Digital (2020) E 01 Zhi Min Chu 169 No 1) The court provides reasons as follows: Inter Digital intentionally brought a conflicting action in India to hamper the Chinese proceedings; the Indian proceedings may lead to judgments irreconcilable to the Chinese one; an anti-suit injunction is necessary to prevent irreparable harm to Xiaomi’s interests; an anti-suit injunction will not harm Intel Digital’s legitimate interests or public interests.

2 Innovative Judicial ‘Law Making’ to Transplant Foreign Law

These two cases are interesting in that they open the door for the courts to ‘make law’ by providing Chinese legislation innovative interpretation. Chinese law does not explicitly permit the courts to issue anti-suit or anti-arbitration injunctions. Article 100 of the Civil Procedure Law of China permits Chinese courts to order or prohibit the respondent to do, or from doing, certain actions, if the respondent’s behaviour may lead to the difficulty to enforce the judgment or cause other damages to the other party. But this act preservation provision was generally used only in the preservation of property, injunction of infringing actions, or other circumstances where the respondent’s action may directly cause substantive harm to the applicant’s personal or proprietary rights. It was never applied as the equivalent to anti-suit injunctions. The ‘Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues concerning the Application of Law in Cases Involving the Review of Act Preservation in Intellectual Property Disputes’ (No. 21 [2018] of the Supreme People’s Court) enforced from 1 Jan 2019 did not mention the court’s competence to issue anti-suit injunction. These two judgments provide innovative interpretation to Art 100 by extending act preservation measures to cover anti-suit injunction.

It is important to note that anti-suit injunction is a controversial instrument used to combat the conflict of jurisdiction and forum shopping. It is not issued frequently or lightly. Instead, there is a high threshold to cross. In England, for example, an anti-suit injunction can be ordered only if the foreign proceedings are vexatious or oppressive and England is the natural forum, (Airbus Industrie GIE v Patel [1999] AC 119) or the foreign proceedings would breach a valid exclusive jurisdiction or arbitration clause between the parties. (The “Angelic Grace”, [1995] 1 Lloyd’s Rep. 87) In both cases, neither courts justify China is a natural forum. Such justification may be more difficult in disputes concerning foreign patent due to the territoriality of patent.  Furthermore, foreign proceedings are not oppressive just because they award higher rate to the parent holder, which is not properly handled either by the Chinese judgments. In the US, anti-suit injunction requires the parties and issues in foreign proceedings are ‘the same’ as the local ones. (E. & J. Gallo Winery v. Andina Licores SA, 446 F. 3d 984 (Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit 2006)) This barrier is difficult to lift in disputes concerning infringement of national patents in the same family. In FRAND cases, the court usually relies on the ‘contractual umbrella over the patent’ to avoid the difficulty brought by the territoriality of patent. (Huawei v Samsung, Case No. 3:16-cv-02787-WHO) Even if a contractual approach is adopted, the court still needs to ascertain the foreign litigation may frustrate a local policy, would be vexatious or oppressive, would threaten the U.S. court’s in rem jurisdiction, or would prejudice other equitable considerations. (Zapata Off-Shore Company v. Unterweser Reederei GMBH, 428 F.2d 888 (United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, 1970))

The Chinese judgments show clear sign of borrowing the common law tests. In particular, the Huawei v Conversant judgment has high similarity with Huawei v Samsung judgment rendered by the California Northern District Court. The problem is the enjoined Düsseldorf judgment awarded FRAND rate instead of an unconditional injunction like the Shenzhen judgment. While enforcing a permanent injunction in the biggest market of Samsung may lead to a forced settlement which would make the US proceedings unnecessary or redundant, enforcing the court determined FRAND rate covering only one state may not have the same effect on the Chinese proceedings. In particular, due to different standards to calculate the FRAND rate, a higher rate covering the German market is not oppressive and would not result in a forced settlement for Chinese FRAND rate. The Wuhan judgment focuses on the vexatious foreign proceedings brought in bad faith and abuse of process. The Wuhan court considers the Indian proceedings was brought to frustrate the pending proceedings before the Wuhan court. The judgment seems to follow the English trait. However, the court did not fully explain how an action purely covering Indian patents and concerning Indian market would affect the Chinese proceedings based on contract. It is also unclear whether Chinese court could award a global FRAND rate as the English court will do. Although in contrast to many other judgments, these two judgments show reasonable quality and laudable efforts of reasoning, reading in details may suggest the courts have learnt more in form instead of substance. The judicial transplant of very unfamiliar common law instruments into Chinese practice seems a little awkward and immature.

3 Comity, Pragmatism and Rule of Law

Anti-suit injunction is a controversial instrument in that it may infringe foreign judicial sovereignty and comity. Even if it is technically directed to the respondent not a foreign court, it makes judgment on the appropriateness of foreign proceedings, which, in normal circumstances, should be judged by the foreign court. No matter how indirect the interference is, an interference is there. Such an approach is fundamentally incompatible with Chinese jurisprudence and diplomatic policy, which emphasise on the principle of sovereign equality and non-interference. China usually considers parallel proceedings tolerable which concern the judicial sovereignty of two countries and each could continue jurisdiction pursuant to their domestic law. (Art 533 of Civil Procedural Law Judicial Interpretation by SPC) Adopting anti-suit injunction to tackle foreign parallel proceedings or related proceedings directly contradicts this provision.

Since Chinese courts would not deviate from the central government’s policy, the two judgments may be a sign to show China is gradually adjusting its international policy from self-restraint to zealous competition, at least in the high-tech area. This is consistent with China’s strategic plan to develop its high-tech industry and a series of reform is adopted to improve IP adjudication. It may imply consideration of diffused reciprocity, i.e. since some foreign courts may issue anti-suit injunction to obstruct Chinese proceedings, Chinese courts should have the same power. It may also reflects China’s increased confidence on its institutions led by its economic power. The transplant of anti-suit injunction cannot be deemed as admiring foreign law, but a pragmatic approach to use any tools available to achieve their aims. Since anti-suit injunctions may interfere a state’s sovereignty, a foreign state may issue ‘anti-anti-suit injunction’ to block it. While injunction wars occur in high-tech cases, the final trump card should be a country’s economic power. Since China is the biggest market for many telecom products, it would be the last market that most companies would give up, which would provide Chinese courts a privilege.

Finally, since anti-suit injunction is not included explicitly in Chinese law, there is no consistent test applying to it. The two judgments have applied different tests following the practice from different common law countries. It is also noted that the lack of relevant training in exercise discretion in issuing anti-suit injunctions or applying precedents leads to uncertainty and some discrepancy. Issuing anti-suit injunction is serious in that it may affect comity and international relation. It thus cannot be adopted randomly or flexibly by mirroring one or two foreign judgments. If China indeed wants to adopt anti-suit injunction, a test guidance should be provided. Anti-suit injunction needs to be issued under the rule of law.