The Enforcement of Anti-Suit Injunctions: A ‎Comparative ‎Study in the EU, French, and Iranian ‎Law

One way of dealing with parallel litigation for the courts of common law countries is ‎to issue an anti-suit injunction preventing one of the disputing parties from initiating or ‎continuing proceedings in the courts of another country. Civil law countries believe that ‎this remedy interferes with the proceedings in their courts and violates their national ‎sovereignty. This study aims to examine the attitude of the EU, French, and Iranian law ‎towards the enforcement of anti-suit injunctions. The study contends that in the EU, an ‎anti-suit injunction rendered by a third country is enforceable in an EU member state as ‎long as it accepts the enforcement of such an injunction under its national law and its ‎jurisdiction is not based on EU regulations. In French law, anti-suit injunctions are ‎traditionally unenforceable. However, when parties agree to grant jurisdiction to a ‎foreign court, the French courts enforce such injunctions and dismiss the proceedings in ‎favor of the foreign-selected court. On the other hand, when the French courts assert ‎exclusive jurisdiction to decide the dispute, they may react to an anti-suit injunction by ‎issuing an anti-anti-suit injunction.  In Iranian law, an anti-suit injunction cannot be ‎enforced under Article 169 of the Enforcement of Civil Judgments Code. As a result, ‎there is no mechanism for the enforcement of anti-suit injunctions in Iran. However, ‎due to the advantages of enforcing anti-suit injunctions, the study contends that the lack ‎of a mechanism should not be an obstacle to the enforcement of anti-suit injunctions in ‎Iran.‎