SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd

An anti-suit injunction rests on the broad statutory test of whether relief is just and convenient. The recognised categories of case guide the analysis but do not exhaust the jurisdiction. The court must balance all relevant factors, giving particular weight to comity and proceeding with caution.

An anti-enforcement injunction is exceptional. After a foreign judgment, something of the force of fraud, or an equivalent grave inequity, will ordinarily be needed. Exorbitant or intrusive enforcement measures, public-policy concerns and interference with an English enforcement judgment may be relevant, but they do not automatically justify relief. Delay, submission to the foreign jurisdiction and participation in the foreign proceedings may substantially weigh against an injunction.

The defendant sought continuation of an interim anti-suit injunction restraining the claimant from pursuing assignment and turnover orders in the United States. Those orders would require the defendant personally to assign or transfer payment rights and money to the claimant or a US Marshal, potentially affecting debts payable in England.

The claimant had obtained a US judgment after extensive US liability proceedings. The English court had previously refused enforcement of specified parts of that judgment on issue-estoppel, abuse-of-process and public-policy grounds. The central question was whether the proposed US enforcement measures interfered with the English court’s jurisdiction or judgment, were impermissibly exorbitant, or otherwise made it just and convenient to continue the injunction.

1. Outcome. The interim injunction was not continued. The application to continue it was dismissed. The arguments for discharge based on without-notice procedure, absence of a damages undertaking and alleged non-disclosure were also rejected.
2. Jurisdiction and governing approach. The power derives from section 37(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 and the broad test of whether relief is just and convenient. The categories identified in prior cases are analytical tools rather than closed classes. The court must balance all relevant factors, while recognising that an anti-suit injunction indirectly affects a foreign court and therefore requires caution. The English forum must have a sufficient interest or connection with the matter.
3. Public policy. Public policy is conceptually capable of providing an independent basis for an anti-suit injunction. However, the possibility is practically very narrow. The policy must be important, the variance between the jurisdictions significant, and the foreign jurisdiction properly regarded as exorbitant. In this case, public-policy considerations overlapped with the arguments based on interference and vexation, so treating them as a separate cumulative ground risked double counting.
4. Anti-enforcement relief. Such relief is rare and exceptional. The successful authorities involved fraud, breach of contract, or similarly grave wrongdoing. Mere exorbitance was insufficient. The proposed US orders were intrusive and went further than orders this court would make, but they operated in personam against a party subject to US jurisdiction and were not so exorbitant as to require English intervention.
5. Interference, comity and the English judgment. The earlier English judgment concerned enforcement of the US judgment, not the merits of liability, and did not establish that enforcement could never occur elsewhere. The US court retained a discretion over the proposed measures. Comity required leaving that question primarily to the US court, which could take account of the English judgment and draw the line of permissible relief.
6. Delay and submission. WPL had participated fully in the US liability proceedings, abandoned its jurisdictional resistance, and did not seek English relief before judgment. Its later participation in the California enforcement proceedings also carried some weight. Those matters substantially weakened the application, notwithstanding that the application followed the later in personam enforcement proposals relatively promptly.
7. The court therefore declined to continue the injunction. The US court’s proposed orders were left for that court to determine, with the benefit of the English judgment.

First-instance decision on an application to continue an interim anti-suit injunction. The judgment refers to an earlier English enforcement judgment, [2018] EWHC 3452 (Comm), but no appeal from the present decision is stated.