Gray v Hurley

Article 4(1) of the Judgments Regulation is mandatory and generally requires a person domiciled in a Member State to be sued in that state. However, it does not ordinarily create a private statutory obligation enforceable by an anti-suit injunction against proceedings brought elsewhere. The employment-specific reasoning in Samengo-Turner v J&H Marsh McLennan (Services) Ltd was not extended to Article 4(1).

Discretionary anti-suit relief remains governed by considerations including forum appropriateness, vexation or oppression, legitimate personal or juridical advantage, and comity. Parallel proceedings are undesirable but are not necessarily vexatious or oppressive. A remote and contingent risk of interference with property rights does not require an injunction under human-rights principles.

The claimant sought an anti-suit injunction restraining the defendant from pursuing proceedings in New Zealand concerning property and relationship matters. The claimant was domiciled in England, and the court had previously found England clearly the appropriate forum for her claims, although the defendant’s claim under the New Zealand Property (Relationships) Act would not be determined there.

The claimant relied on Article 4(1) of the Judgments Regulation, the court’s discretion to restrain foreign proceedings, and section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998. The central issues were whether Article 4(1) created an enforceable statutory obligation to sue only in England, and whether discretionary or human-rights considerations nevertheless required an injunction.

1. Application dismissed. The court refused to grant an anti-suit injunction restraining the New Zealand proceedings.

2. Article 4(1) of the Judgments Regulation is mandatory and embodies the fundamental rule that persons domiciled in a Member State shall be sued in the courts of that state. Its exceptions are narrowly interpreted. On the facts, none of the exceptions applied, so England was the only jurisdiction in which the claimant could be sued consistently with the Regulation.

3. That conclusion did not establish that the defendant owed the claimant a private statutory obligation, enforceable by injunction, not to sue her elsewhere. Samengo-Turner v J&H Marsh McLennan (Services) Ltd concerned the employment-specific protection now found in Article 22(1). The Court of Appeal’s ratio was expressed in employment terms, and neither that decision nor Petter v EMC Europe Ltd decided that the same approach applied to Article 4(1). The court therefore declined to grant an injunction on that basis.

4. The discretionary application was assessed by reference to the principles summarised in Deutsche Bank AG v Highland Crusader Offshore Partners LP. England was clearly the appropriate forum for the claimant’s claims, but there were material connections with New Zealand, including the defendant’s nationality, the parties’ time there, and property held through a New Zealand company. Reliance on the New Zealand legislation was not illegitimate, and the proceedings were not unconscionable, vexatious or oppressive. The alleged breach of Article 4(1) was not a significant discretionary factor. Comity also weighed against intervention, particularly because the injunction would prohibit the defendant’s New Zealand claim altogether. Parallel proceedings, although undesirable, were not necessarily vexatious or oppressive.

5. The human-rights argument failed. Any interference with the claimant’s possessions under Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the ECHR was remote and contingent upon a future judgment and enforcement steps. That possibility did not justify quia timet relief or establish a positive obligation requiring the English court to grant an anti-suit injunction.