A Russian chemical company and a German bank, neither having a presence in the United Kingdom, concluded a commercial contract expressed to be governed by English law. It included among its terms a clause providing for ICC arbitration seated in Paris; but, for one reason or another, the Russian company brought proceedings against the bank before the Russian courts.1 Aware that French law offered rather little by way of enforcement measures, the bank sought its anti-suit injunction from the English courts, applying for permission to serve the claim form on the Russian company out of the jurisdiction. In UniCredit Bank GmbH v RusChemAlliance LLC,2 the Supreme Court, in a rousing declaration of contractual orthodoxy, confirmed the grant of permission, and the injunction, because pacta sunt servanda.3 Service out of the jurisdiction was permissible because the arbitration agreement4 was governed by English law.5 As the English court had a sufficient connection,6 or proper interest in granting relief (and in the absence of real evidence that the courts at the seat would feel that their toes were being trodden on), England was the proper place for the matter to be decided. The general principle in The Spiliada 7 was not engaged, for a matter meant to be arbitrated does not belong in any court, anywhere, thus rendering irrelevant the assessment of fora as natural or not. The enforcing of international arbitration agreements is far more than a merely domestic concern, and that is the principle guiding the court when asking, as CPR r.6.37(3) does, whether England is the proper place.8 If there was no direct precedent for what the court was being asked to do, save for a prescient decision from the Court of Appeal for Bermuda,9 the Supreme Court was happy to create a new one and to restore some order.

If one asks how much of this will translate to the case where the breach is of a foreign choice of court, rather than arbitration, agreement, a reasonable deduction would be that, if jurisdiction does not depend on service out, the grant of an enforcing injunction should be more or less automatic,10 because the proposition that (dispute resolution) agreements are to observed is not limited by geography or type. But, where jurisdiction depends on service out and showing England to be the proper place, the lack of collateral support