19/02/2025

Commercial Court grants rare anti-suit injunction on the basis of third-party rights

In a judgment handed down on 19 February 2025 in Manta Penyez Shipping Inc and another v Zuhoor Alsaeed Foodstuff Company [2025] EWHC 353 (Comm), the Commercial Court granted a final anti-suit injunction in favour of the claimants, who were represented by Alexander Yean and Eliza Bond.

The defendant had commenced no fewer than five sets of foreign proceedings against the claimants in Yemen and Djibouti, including two ship arrest proceedings that have now reached the appellate court in Yemen and the apex court in Djibouti. The claimants successfully argued before Mrs Justice Cockerill that all five actions were wrongful and ought to be permanently injuncted, being in breach of the defendant’s obligations under a bank guarantee.

Of note is the fact that the claimants were not parties to the bank guarantee being relied on, which had been issued in favour of the defendant by a third party. As such, the claimants sought, and succeeded in obtaining, relief pursuant to the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 – a rare example of an anti-suit injunction being granted on this basis.

Cockerill J also opined that the claimants had a “plainly…feasible” alternative basis for the anti-suit injunction, on the ground that each of the foreign proceedings was also, for reasons independent of the bank guarantee, vexatious and oppressive [88].

Alexander Yean and Eliza Bond were instructed by MFB Solicitors. Alexander Yean had previously also appeared before Dias J and Mr Stephen Houseman KC (sitting as a deputy High Court judge) in obtaining interim relief: [2024] EWHC 3109 (Comm).