Introduction to the Online Symposium on the UK Supreme Court Judgment in UniCredit

On 18 September 2024, the UK Supreme Court gave the reasons for its unanimous judgment in UniCredit Bank GmbH v RusChemAlliance LLC [2024] UKSC 30. This development was covered by the EAPIL Blog.

In brief, the court upheld the judgment of the Court of Appeal ([2024] EWCA Civ 64), which had granted an anti-suit injunction to enforce an English law-governed arbitration agreement with a Paris seat against a Russian party that had commenced proceedings in Russia in breach of the arbitration agreement.

This judgment has generated significant interest. For instance, a search for ‘Unicredit v RusChemAlliance’ and ‘UniCredit Bank GmbH v RusChemAlliance LLC’ on Lexology.com, a legal intelligence platform, reveals a total of 58 articles written by leading law firms. A conference organised by King’s College London, which featured a panel on Unicredit, attracted around 200 attendees and there was a queue of disappointed people outside the event venue who arrived too late to get a seat.

Given its importance, the EAPIL blog will host an online symposium on this judgment on 13 and 14 November 2024.

The focus will be on three key aspects of the judgment: (1) the law applicable to arbitration agreements, (2) the question of when English courts are the proper forum to grant an anti-suit injunction to enforce an English law-governed arbitration agreement with a foreign seat, and (3) what French law has to say about the willingness of English courts to enforce arbitration agreements with a Paris seat by means of anti-suit injunctions, which are not available under French Law.

These three aspects will be discussed, respectively, by Manuel Penades (KCL), Faidon Varesis (Cambridge) and Etienne Farnoux (Strasbourg). [Update: the contributions can now be found here, here and here].

Readers are encouraged to participate in the discussion by commenting on the posts.