Anti-suit injunction: interim measures

In SRS Middle East FZE v Chemie Tech DMCC [2020] EWHC 2904 (Comm) the claimant sought an anti-suit injunction to prevent the defendant from continuing with judicial proceedings in Sharjah in breach of an arbitration clause. The defendant’s response was that it had obtained interim measures from the Sharjah court and that it was necessary to bring a substantive claim if those measures were to be maintained. Andrew Baker J held that in such a case an anti-suit injunction should be granted: if the price of obtaining interim measures was substantive proceedings, then the arbitration clause was to take priority.

SRS : the facts