Case: CSR Limited v Cigna Insurance Australia Limited [1997] HCA 33 ; (1997) 189 CLR 345
Outcome: followed
In CSR Limited v Cigna Insurance Australia Limited [1997] HCA 33 ; (1997) 189 CLR 345 at 391-392 Dawson, Toohey, Gaudron, McHugh, Gummow and Kirby JJ said: 'The counterpart of a court's power to prevent its processes being abused is its power to protect the integrity of those processes once set in motion (see, eg, with respect to the power to grant a Mareva injunction, Jackson v Sterling Industries Ltd [1987] HCA 23 ; (1987) 162 CLR 612 at 619, 621, 639; Witham v Holloway [1995] HCA 3 ; (1995) 183 CLR 525 at 535. See also Ridgeway v The Queen [1994] HCA 33 ; (1995) 184 CLR 19 at 60). And in some cases, it is that counterpart power of protection that authorises the grant of anti-suit injunctions. Thus, for example, if "an estate is being administered ... or a petition in bankruptcy has been presented ... or winding up proceedings have been commenced ... an injunction [may be] granted to restrain a person from seeking, by foreign proceedings, to obtain the sole benefit of certain foreign assets" ( Soci&eacute;t&eacute; Nationale Industrielle Aerospatiale v Lee Kui Jak [1987] AC 871 at 892. See also Bank of Tokyo Ltd v Karoon [1987] AC 45 at 60, per Robert Goff LJ, and the cases there cited; Allstate Ltd v ANZ Banking Group Ltd [No 1] (1996) 64 FCR 1 at 26, and the cases there cited). Similarly, as Gummow J pointed out in National Mutual Holdings Pty Ltd v Sentry Corporation ((1989) 22 FCR 209 at 232. See also, eg, Laker Airways Ltd v Sabena, Belgian World Airlines (1984) 731 F 2d 909 at 927; Re Siromath Pty Ltd [No 3] (1991) 25 NSWLR 25 at 29-30), a court may grant an injunction to restrain a person from commencing or continuing foreign proceedings if they, the foreign proceedings, interfere with or have a tendency to interfere with proceedings pending in that court. The inherent power to grant anti-suit injunctions is not confined to the examples just given. As with other aspects of that power, it is not to be restricted to defined and closed categories 112 . Rather, it is to be exercised when the administration of justice so demands or, in the context of anti-suit injunctions, when necessary for the protection of the court's own proceedings or processes.' 22 In Batistatos v Roads and Traffic Authority of New South Wales [2006] HCA 27 Gleeson CJ and Gummow, Hayne and Crennan JJ said at [9]: 'What amounts to abuse of court process is insusceptible of a formulation comprising closed categories. Development continues. One example is the line of authority dealing with the stay of proceedings instituted in a second forum where there are pending proceedings in another forum and the continuance of the second proceedings would be an abuse of the process of the first forum ( Logan v Bank of Scotland (No 2) [1906] 1 KB 141; Maritime Insurance Co Ltd v Geelong Harbor Trust Commissioners [1908] HCA 37 ; (1908) 6 CLR 194; Oceanic Sun Line Special Shipping Company Inc v Fay [1988] HCA 32 ; (1988) 165 CLR 197; Voth v Manildra Flour Mills Pty Ltd [1990] HCA 55 ; (1990) 171 CLR 538). Again, in Cardile v LED Builders Pty Ltd ((1999) [1999] HCA 18 ; 198 CLR 380 at 393 [25] ), Gaudron, McHugh, Gummow and Callinan JJ referred to the passage in the joint judgment in CSR Ltd v Cigna Insurance Australia Ltd ((1997) [1997] HCA 33 ; 189 CLR 345 at 391) where it was said of the grant of an anti-suit injunction that the counterpart of the power of a court to prevent the abuse of its processes was the power of the court to protect the integrity of those processes once set in motion.'