## Facts

- An Airbus A320 crashed while landing in Bangalore, India (Feb. 14, 1990), killing and injuring passengers, including two London-based British families.
- An Indian Court of Inquiry attributed the crash to pilot error.
- The British families sued in India, settling with Indian Airlines Corporation for the maximum recoverable under its liability limit; claims against another Indian entity proceeded slowly and faced causation problems.
- The British families also filed product-liability claims in Texas against Airbus and others; the Texas actions were consolidated with suits for American passengers, and Texas did not apply forum non conveniens to stay the cases in favor of India.
- Airbus obtained an Indian court order purporting to restrain the British and American claimants from suing Airbus outside India, but it was practically unenforceable against those claimants.
- Airbus then sued in England seeking (1) enforcement of the Indian order and (2) an English anti-suit injunction to stop the British claimants from continuing the Texas case.
- The trial judge refused an anti-suit injunction; the Court of Appeal granted one; the British claimants appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether an English court should grant an anti-suit injunction restraining proceedings in a foreign court (Texas) when England is not the natural forum and the proper-forum dispute is effectively between two foreign jurisdictions (India and Texas).
2. Whether pursuing the Texas proceedings was “oppressive or vexatious” so as to justify equitable restraint, given the plaintiffs’ reliance on more plaintiff-favorable substantive and remedial rules.
3. What role international comity and appellate deference to first-instance discretion play in reviewing a refusal to grant an anti-suit injunction.

## Decision

- The House of Lords allowed the appeal and discharged the anti-suit injunction.
- England was not the natural forum; the dispute about the appropriate forum was essentially between India and Texas.
- Comity required strong restraint: absent a compelling English interest or a clear injustice, English courts should not police competing foreign fora.
- The Texas proceedings were not shown to be sufficiently oppressive or vexatious; the availability of more favorable Texas law and remedies did not, without more, establish oppression.
- The Court of Appeal should not have reversed the trial judge’s discretionary refusal absent an error of principle.

## Legal Principles

- Anti-suit injunctions are discretionary, in personam remedies and should be granted only with caution and in a clear case.
- The remedy is commonly justified where foreign proceedings are oppressive or vexatious and where the enjoining court is the natural forum (or has a strong connection warranting protection of its processes or parties).
- Where England is not the natural forum and the forum contest is between two foreign jurisdictions, comity ordinarily counsels against English intervention.
- Forum shopping or choosing a jurisdiction with more favorable substantive law or damages does not by itself constitute oppression or vexation.
- Appellate courts should be slow to disturb a first-instance judge’s discretionary balancing in anti-suit matters unless a legal or principled error is shown.

## Conclusion

The House of Lords held that, because England was not the natural forum and the alleged unfairness of the Texas action did not meet the high threshold of oppression, an English anti-suit injunction should not issue; comity and respect for first-instance discretion required the injunction to be refused.


Airbus Industrie G.I.E. v. Patel, [1999] 1 A.C. 119 (H.L. 1998)