Anti-suit Injunctions for Dutch Courts

In common law countries, an anti-suit injunction is a common type of injunction. It enables a party to ask the court to grant an injunction restraining another party from pursuing proceedings in a foreign jurisdiction. However, in civil law countries, this concept is hardly known.

On April 27 2004, in Turner v Grovit (C-159/02), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on an anti-suit injunction granted by an English court which prevented a party from pursuing litigation before the Spanish courts. The ECJ ruled that this was not allowed under the 1968 Brussels Convention on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters, as an injunction that prevents commencing or continuing proceedings in another state interferes with the jurisdiction of the courts of the latter state, which is incompatible with the convention.¹ This is the case even where the issuing court's injunction was intended to prevent an abuse of process by the defendant in a foreign