Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
A CHARTER FOR TACTICAL LITIGATION IN EUROPE?
Turner
v. Grovit
The English courts’ practice of granting anti-suit injunctions to restrain proceedings in EU Member States has been firmly suppressed by the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) in Turner
v. Grovit
.1
The decision comes as no surprise: the compatibility of that practice with the Brussels Convention2
and its successor Regulation3
has been questioned for some time.4
Nevertheless, its potential implications, both legal and practical, merit closer examination.5
Mr Turner was a solicitor employed by a group of companies controlled by Mr Grovit. In 1997, he moved from the United Kingdom to Spain, while remaining in the employment of a UK based entity. Subsequently, Harada Ltd, a group company incorporated in the Republic of Ireland but with its principal place of business in the United Kingdom, became his employer. In 1998, Mr Turner resigned his position and returned to London. He brought proceedings against Harada before an Employment Tribunal there in March 1998 alleging wrongful dismissal. The Tribunal dismissed Harada’s objection to its jurisdiction and eventually awarded damages to Mr Turner. Meanwhile, in September 1998, Changepoint SA, a Spanish member of Mr Grovit’s group of companies, commenced proceedings against Mr Turner before the court of first instance in Madrid, alleging that Mr Turner had been employed by it (not Harada) and had broken his contract of employment. The amount claimed (equivalent to some £340,000) was far in excess of the amount claimed by, and awarded to, Mr Turner in England.
1. (27 April 2004) Turner
v. Grovit
(Case C–159/02
).
2. EC Convention on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters 1968 (as amended) (referred to below as the “Brussels Convention”). Although not specifically addressed in this Comment, the 1988 Lugano Convention on jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters raises identical issues.
3. Regulation (EC) No. 44/2001 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (as amended) (referred to below as the “EU Jurisdiction Regulation”).
4. See, eg, H. Gaudemet-Tallon in J. Fawcett (ed), Declining Jurisdiction
(Oxford, 1995) 176, 186–187; A. Briggs, ch 12 of F.D. Rose (ed), Lex Mercatoria
(London, 2000) 219, at 228–239; C. Ambrose, “Can Anti-Suit Injunctions Survive European Community Law?” (2003) 52 ICLQ 401. See also Re The Enforcement of an English Anti-Suit Injunction
[1997] ILPr 320 (Oberlandesgericht, Dusseldorf).
5. The decision in Turner
does not affect the practice of the English courts in granting anti-suit injunctions (a) to restrain proceedings outside the Contracting/Member States to the Conventions/Regulation, (b) to restrain proceedings falling outside the material scope of the Conventions/Regulation (Art 1), or (probably) (c) to enforce an arbitration agreement (arbitration being one of the matters specifically excluded from the scope of the Conventions/Regulation).
273