An anti-lawsuit injunction is a court order preventing a party from transferring a dispute to another court or bringing an identical suit elsewhere. It aims to prevent parallel foreign claims and forum shopping. Courts have different positions on when to issue an injunction, but parties who defy it can face hefty penalties.
An anti-claims injunction is a court order prohibiting a party involved in a dispute from transferring that dispute to another court or from bringing an identical suit elsewhere. When a court issues an anti-lawsuit injunction, it is essentially saying that it will be the sole court to decide the outcome of the case at hand. Most of the time, anti-complaint injunctions are used to prohibit parallel foreign claims, but they can also be used to limit a party’s ability to re-submit the same claims in a different domestic court.
In the most basic sense, an anti-lawsuit injunction is a means of stopping lawsuits. It is generally not beneficial to a uniform body of law for a case to be tried in several venues at the same time. If the courts get different results or award different amounts of damages, it can be difficult to know which decisions are binding. In most cases, the court in which an action is first brought is the court of exclusive jurisdiction. A party that tries to file again elsewhere once things get underway may find itself served with an anti-suit injunction.
Anti-lawsuit injunctions are also a way for courts to ban a practice known as “forum shopping.” Forum shopping occurs when a plaintiff files suit in a particular court not because that court is more convenient or because it has primary jurisdiction over the issues and facts, but rather because he is more likely to issue a favorable ruling. This likelihood is often based on a judge’s statistics when ruling on a certain type of case or the demographics of local residents who might make up a jury.
Some forum purchases happen in most places in the archiving stage. Anti-lawsuit injunctions can’t do much about that. However, once a lawsuit is filed and litigation begins, the injunction prohibits a party from changing their mind or seeking a better outcome from an alternative court.
Most anti-lawsuit injunctions occur in international disputes. It is rare for a court to deal with a case that is simultaneously under litigation in another domestic court: most of the time, double litigation is a serious violation of the law and court rules. However, a court in one country may unknowingly accept a case that is also ongoing abroad. An anti-lawsuit injunction can stop this type of forum-shopping, often even before it has even begun. The overseas litigation stop is one of the most common types of anti-lawsuit injunction.
Courts in different jurisdictions have different positions on when it is appropriate to issue an anti-lawsuit injunction. Most courts have adopted the so-called “narrow” approach and will interfere in parallel instances only when there is clear evidence of frustration of justice, or courtesy laws and other international laws explicitly permit interference. A “permissive” approach, on the other hand, orders courts to step in and issue an injunction whenever the court deems it subjectively justified.
In any case, parties who defy anti-lawsuit injunctions can face hefty penalties in most places. Some courts will issue a default judgment against the parties who violate the order and pursue the litigation elsewhere. Others will subject offenders to contempt of judicial charges and fines.
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