## Facts

- Transatlantic scheduled air services between the United Kingdom and the United States operated under a bilateral treaty regime requiring governmental approval of routes and tariffs.
- Laker Airways Ltd. operated low-fare “Skytrain” services that undercut incumbent carriers’ pricing and gained a substantial share of transatlantic passengers.
- British Airways Board and British Caledonian Airways Ltd. responded with significantly reduced fares that Laker characterized as predatory and coordinated with other carriers.
- After Laker entered liquidation, its liquidators sued BA, BC, and others in a U.S. federal district court under U.S. antitrust law, seeking remedies including treble damages.
- BA and BC sued in England for anti-suit injunctions to restrain Laker from prosecuting the U.S. antitrust action, arguing the U.S. suit was unconscionable and oppressive and that English law provided no comparable private antitrust claim.
- The Secretary of State issued directions under the Protection of Trading Interests Act 1980 (PTIA) restricting compliance by UK persons with U.S. antitrust-related requirements, including certain discovery and enforcement measures.
- The English Court of Appeal granted permanent anti-suit injunctions and dismissed Laker’s judicial review challenge to the PTIA directions.
- Laker appealed to the House of Lords in the injunction actions and in the judicial review matter.

## Issues

1. Whether an English court should enjoin a UK claimant from pursuing foreign proceedings where the foreign court is the only effective forum for the substantive claim and the claim is not justiciable in England.
2. What showing of unconscionable, vexatious, or oppressive conduct is required to justify an anti-suit injunction consistent with international comity.
3. Whether PTIA 1980 directions restricting compliance with foreign antitrust measures render continuation of the foreign action oppressive so as to justify an injunction.
4. Whether the Secretary of State’s PTIA 1980 directions were within statutory power and lawfully made.

## Decision

- The House of Lords allowed Laker’s appeals in the civil actions and discharged the anti-suit injunctions restraining the U.S. antitrust proceedings.
- The House held that the U.S. court was the natural and only effective forum for the antitrust claims and that this weighed strongly against injunctive interference.
- The House rejected the argument that exposure to U.S. procedures and remedies (including treble damages and broad discovery) made the foreign proceedings, without more, oppressive or unconscionable.
- The House held that the PTIA 1980 directions did not convert Laker’s recourse to the U.S. court into an abuse warranting an anti-suit injunction.
- The House dismissed the judicial review appeal and upheld the PTIA 1980 directions as intra vires and lawfully exercised.

## Legal Principles

- An anti-suit injunction operates in personam but must be used sparingly because it effectively interferes with a foreign court’s legitimate exercise of jurisdiction.
- Anti-suit relief generally requires proof that the foreign proceedings are unconscionable, vexatious, or oppressive as against the party seeking the injunction; differences in foreign procedure, discovery, costs, or available remedies do not alone satisfy that standard.
- When a foreign court is the natural and only effective forum for the substantive claim, comity strongly disfavors restraining the claimant from proceeding there.
- Participation in, or compliance with, a bilateral regulatory regime governing routes and tariffs does not confer equitable immunity from foreign antitrust litigation where that foreign law is engaged by conduct affecting the foreign market.
- Domestic “blocking” measures may regulate the conduct of domestic parties (e.g., compliance with foreign discovery or enforcement of non-compensatory damages) but do not, by themselves, make the underlying foreign proceedings illegitimate or abusive.
- Ministerial directions under PTIA 1980 fall within a broad discretion to protect national trading interests and are not invalid merely because they affect litigation strategy or cross-border enforcement risks.

## Conclusion

The House of Lords refused to restrain Laker from pursuing U.S. antitrust claims in the only effective forum, holding that comity and the limited equitable basis for anti-suit injunctions barred relief absent true vexation or oppression, and it separately upheld the government’s PTIA 1980 directions as a lawful exercise of statutory power.


British Airways Bd. v. Laker Airways Ltd., [1985] 1 A.C. 58 (H.L. 1984)