Can a successful litigant voluntarily surrender the protection of a final English anti-suit injunction (ASI) in the face of foreign coercion? In UniCredit Bank GmbH v RusChemAlliance LLC [2025] EWCA Civ 99, the Court of Appeal acceded to such a request, varying a final order - previously upheld by the Supreme Court ([2024] UKSC 30) - to discharge the ASI preventing RusChemAlliance (RCA) from pursuing proceedings in Russia.
Following the Supreme Court’s affirmation of the original ASI, RCA not only ignored the English order but secured a conflicting injunction from the Russian courts. This Russian order threatened UniCredit with a penalty of €250 million should it fail to seek the revocation of the English ASI. Faced with this “Catch-22” - maintain the English injunction and suffer a ruinous penalty, or capitulate to the Russian court - UniCredit applied to discharge the English order.
The Court of Appeal (Sir Geoffrey Vos MR, with whom Asplin and Phillips LJJ agreed) granted the application, revoking the injunctive relief while preserving the declaratory judgment regarding the correct jurisdiction.
The fluidity of the anti-suit injunction
The primary doctrinal hurdle was the finality of the Supreme Court’s order. Could the Court of Appeal vary a “final” judgment under CPR 3.1(7) or CPR 52.30? Sir Geoffrey Vos MR answered in the affirmative.
His Lordship correctly reasoned that an ASI is not an immutable edict of the state, but a tool of private commercial litigation (at [24]). It would be illogical to compel a party to maintain a shield it no longer desires, particularly where the utility of that shield had been exhausted. Drawing an analogy to a land dispute, the Master of the Rolls observed that if neighbours settle a boundary dispute, the victor must naturally be entitled to release the other from a “final” injunction. Furthermore, the judgment recognises the unique dynamism of international ‘jurisdictional warfare’ (at [25]). Unlike domestic disputes, cross-border litigation is fluid. Eventually, one jurisdiction prevails practically, rendering the ‘losing’ injunction obsolete.
To insist on the permanence of a final ASI in such circumstances would be to prize legal generalisations over commercial reality. It also reinforces the principle that civil litigation belongs to the parties, not the state.
Political risk and comity
The jurisdiction to vary a final order (pursuant to CPR 3.1(7) and CPR 52.30) is engaged upon the demonstration of a material change in circumstances. In standard commercial litigation, this inquiry is typically confined to objective factual developments - such as the destruction of the asset sought to be protected. Here, however, a striking feature of Sir Geoffrey Vos’s MR analysis was treatment of the systemic unpredictability of the Russian legal order. Ordinarily, English courts operate on the principle of comity, assuming foreign courts act independently and logically. However, Sir Geoffrey Vos MR found that the “risk of real injustice” necessitated a departure from this assumption.
The unusual aspect of the judgment was that the Court likely inferred that the Russian proceedings were driven by a political policy of shielding Russian entities from sanctions. This analysis was compelling precisely because it offered the only rational explanation for why UniCredit faced a €250 million fine despite the Russian order ostensibly requiring them only to “try” to revoke the ASI.
Coercion and commercial autonomy
Did the fact that UniCredit was acting under duress invalidate its application? The Court distinguished the present facts from family law authorities such as SA v FA [2017] EWHC 1731 (Fam), where coercion regarding the safety of children vitiated consent. In that case, a mother agreed to a court order only because she was terrified for the safety of her children, who had been taken to Iraq.
In the commercial sphere, the threshold for “duress” is significantly higher. Sir Geoffrey Vos MR viewed UniCredit’s capitulation not as a panic-driven surrender, but as a calculated commercial decision by a sophisticated board to mitigate a distinct financial risk (at [30]). The Court declined to “second guess” or impugn the commercial judgment of the bank. This suggests that, absent threats to the physical safety of individuals etc., a corporation’s strategic decision to fold in the face of financial ‘coercion’ will be respected by the court as an exercise of autonomy.
Public policy and the rewards of contempt
Finally, the Court wrestled with the “clean hands” dilemma: should English law assist a contemnor (RCA) who has flagrantly disobeyed its orders? There is a paradox in condemning RCA’s conduct while simultaneously granting the very revocation it demanded (at [39]).
However, the Court rightly prioritised pragmatism over the legal system’s ‘dignity’. To refuse the discharge solely to punish RCA would inflict no harm on the Russian entity (which had no assets in the jurisdiction) while visiting catastrophic financial consequences upon the innocent party, UniCredit. The judgment affirms that the ‘dignity’ of the English court is not served by the maintenance of futile orders which act only as instruments of oppression against those they were designed to protect. By revoking the injunction, the Court acknowledged the reality of the situation: the jurisdictional battle had been lost in practice, and the English court’s writ could no longer effectively run.
