Study On The Anti-Suit Injunctions In Interbational Litigation

An anti-suit injunction is an order issued by a court or arbitral tribunal that prevents an opposing party from commencing or continuing a proceeding in another jurisdiction or forum. The anti-suit injunction has deep roots in English law. Traceable at least to fifteenth-century England, the remedy first appeared in the form of a writ of prohibition by the common law courts to the ecclesiastical courts to prevent their expansive jurisdictional assertions. Later, the Court of Chancery invoked the remedy as a means of preventing a party from bringing suit in the common law courts under circumstances in which doing so would be contrary to good conscience. Though initially directed at proceedings in other English courts, the anti-suit injunction eventually was extended to proceedings in foreign countries.Courts generally require that the proponent of the anti-suit injunction satisfy three threshold criteria before the court will order the injunction: 1) the issuing court must have personal jurisdiction over the foreign plaintiff before it can grant this relief. 2) The U.S. suit and the foreign suit must involve the same parties and the same issues. 3) The issuance of anti-suit injunctions can only be allowed to prevent evasion of the forum's important public policies. After the satisfactory of the above threshold criteria, courts must consider the policy of international comity. Because although anti-suit injunctions are not issued directly against foreign tribunals, most courts acknowledge that such injunctions"effectively restrict the foreign court's ability to exercise its jurisdiction." With the development of Globalization and the more chance that parties from China are involved in international civil litigation, we have encountered and take advantage of anti-suit injunctions in many cases. Therefore, China should research and learn from the foreign anti-suit injunction system in order to protect the legal rights of Chinese parties.This essay will argue the use of anti-suit injunctions in the international setting. Part I will examine the historical and the characteristic of the anti-suit injunction. This part will also discuss the relationship between anti-suit injunction and comity. Part II and part III will introduce the modern practice of issuing anti-suit injunctions against foreign courts in the United States and England. Part IV will analysis the attitudes of China on anti-suit injunction and whether china should establish anti-suit injunction system to protect the interests of Chinese parties and safeguard the jurisdiction of our courts.