The West Tankers [2009] decision and its impact in international commercial arbitration

Arbitration can be considered an established method of determination for international commercial disputes.1The arbitration agreement has an obligation to refer disputes that arise between the contracting parties toarbitration. One way of preventing a party from breaching such an agreement by bringing a claim in a courtother than the seat court is through anti-suit injunction. Anti-suit injunction prevents parallel litigation thatmight delay the resolution of disputes.2 The common law systems have a long tradition of using anti-jurisdictionto protect the substantive interests of contracting parties.3For example, in 1911 anti-suit injunction was used inPena Copper Mines Ltd v Rio Tinto Co Ltd.4 However, since 2009, the ability of English courts to grant anti-suitinjunction in favour of arbitration clause within the European Union (EU) has been severely crippled by a recentEuropean Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling.5 This ruling was in the well-known West Tankers case,6 where the ECJstated that anti-suit injunction was incompatible with the EU jurisdiction regime in the Brussels I Regulation.7The impact of the West Tankers case on downplaying the validity of an arbitration agreement is an arguable