## Facts

- Goss International Corporation (Goss) manufactured newspaper-printing presses and related equipment sold in the United States.
- Tokyo Kikai Seisakusho, Ltd. and TKS (U.S.A.), Inc. (collectively, TKS) competed with Goss by selling Japanese-manufactured presses in the U.S. market.
- Goss alleged TKS sold presses in the United States at prices below the cost of manufacturing (dumping) with the intent to injure or destroy a U.S. industry.
- Goss sued (along with claims against other press manufacturers) under the Antidumping Act of 1916, which allowed private plaintiffs to recover treble damages for covered dumping conduct.
- A jury found TKS liable under the 1916 Act, and the district court entered a judgment totaling roughly $35 million, including treble damages, attorney’s fees, and costs.
- While TKS pursued appellate review, Congress repealed the Antidumping Act of 1916, but limited the repeal to suits filed on or after the repeal’s enactment date, leaving previously filed cases intact.
- After the repeal, Japan enacted a “Special Measures Law” allowing Japanese entities to sue in Japan to recover all or part of amounts paid on U.S. 1916 Act judgments (including the multiple-damages component).
- Goss ultimately prevailed in the U.S. litigation and TKS paid the U.S. judgment.
- TKS indicated it intended to bring a Japanese action under the Special Measures Law to recover what it had paid to satisfy the U.S. judgment.
- Goss moved for preliminary and permanent injunctive relief in federal district court to bar TKS from filing or prosecuting the Japanese recoupment action, and the district court granted a preliminary antisuit injunction.
- TKS appealed the preliminary injunction to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

## Issues

1. What legal standard governs issuance of a foreign antisuit injunction in the Eighth Circuit.
2. Whether the district court properly granted a preliminary injunction preventing TKS from filing or pursuing a Japanese action under Japan’s Special Measures Law aimed at recovering amounts paid on the U.S. 1916 Act judgment.

## Decision

- The Eighth Circuit adopted a restrictive (“conservative”) approach to foreign antisuit injunctions.
- Under that approach, a foreign antisuit injunction may issue only if:
  - the foreign action would prevent the U.S. court from exercising its jurisdiction or would threaten an important U.S. policy; and
  - the U.S. interests at stake outweigh the comity concerns raised by restraining litigation in a foreign forum.
- The court affirmed the preliminary injunction.
- The court reasoned that the threatened Japanese action was designed to claw back the effect of a final U.S. judgment by shifting back to Goss the very sums a U.S. court had ordered TKS to pay.
- The court concluded that allowing the Japanese action would frustrate U.S. policy choices reflected in (i) the remedial scheme of the 1916 Act (including multiple damages) and (ii) Congress’s decision to preserve already-filed 1916 Act cases when it repealed the statute.
- The court held that, on these facts, the U.S. interest in protecting the authority and effect of the federal judgment outweighed comity concerns implicated by restraining a contemplated Japanese lawsuit.
- The court noted the injunction’s limited scope: it targeted only litigation in Japan under the Special Measures Law seeking recovery tied to the U.S. 1916 Act judgment.

## Legal Principles

- Federal courts may enjoin parties subject to their jurisdiction from pursuing foreign litigation, but such orders are exceptional because they interfere with proceedings in another sovereign’s courts.
- In the Eighth Circuit, a foreign antisuit injunction is appropriate only when (1) the foreign action would defeat U.S. jurisdiction or threaten an important U.S. policy, and (2) U.S. interests outweigh international comity concerns.
- A foreign “clawback” action aimed at recovering the multiple-damages portion of a U.S. judgment can threaten important U.S. policy where it is structured to neutralize the remedial effect of the U.S. judgment.
- The extent to which the foreign proceeding targets the validity or practical effect of a U.S. judgment, rather than presenting an independent dispute, bears on whether an antisuit injunction is justified.
- Tailoring matters: limiting an injunction to the specific foreign claim that would negate the U.S. judgment supports equitable relief.

## Conclusion

The Eighth Circuit affirmed a preliminary foreign antisuit injunction barring TKS from suing Goss in Japan under Japan’s Special Measures Law to recoup payments made on Goss’s U.S. Antidumping Act of 1916 judgment, holding that such a clawback suit threatened important U.S. policy embodied in the judgment and the statute’s preserved remedial scheme, and that U.S. interests outweighed comity concerns under the circuit’s restrictive standard.


Goss International Corporation v. Man Roland Druckmachinen Aktiengesellschaft, 491 F.3d 355 (2007)