Court Opinion

ID: 9482628
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:55:52.620997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:06.423119
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES,
concurring.
I join in the analysis and judgment of the majority’s thoughtful opinion in this case. As Judge Ryan correctly observes, the test articulated in Laker Airways Ltd. v. Sabena, Belgian World Airlines, 731 F.2d 909 (D.C.Cir.1984), strikes the proper balance between considerations of international comity on the one hand and preserving the integrity of United States laws and the jurisdiction of its courts on the other. I embrace in particular the majority’s recognition, in Part III of its opinion, that any hint of national arrogance is particularly offensive in today’s climate of economic, as well as social, political and cultural, interdependence.
I write separately simply to note that, even under the more exacting Laker Airways standard of review, the facts of this case raise a troubling question as to whether proceedings in the Hong Kong courts do not threaten the legitimate exercise of the district court’s jurisdiction. The district court based its decision to grant the injunction substantially on the fact that, under Hong Kong law, Bankers Trust might be legally entitled to appoint a receiver of its choice to dispose of its claims against Gau Shan without court approval and prior to a resolution of the parties’ claims on the merits. Among the receiver’s powers would be the right to abandon any claims, including the instant action, concerning Gau Shan’s assets. Thus, appointment of a receiver under Hong Kong law could result in the dismissal of this lawsuit and depletion of Gau Shan’s assets before any court of competent jurisdiction reached the merits of Gau Shan’s claims. Such a result, in my view, would give Bankers Trust an inordinate degree of influence over the present dispute. See id. at 930. Also, as the majority notes, the power to appoint a receiver prior to judgment on the merits is contrary to the laws of the United States.
The majority distinguishes the situation here from the one before the court in Laker Airways by noting that the possibility that Bankers Trust might appoint a receiver “is not a threat to the jurisdiction of the United States courts; rather, it is merely a threat to Gau Shan’s interest in prosecuting its lawsuit.” Supra at 1356. While I am sympathetic to the majority’s analysis, I would note that it rests at least in part on a legal fiction. We would certainly uphold the antisuit injunction if the Hong Kong courts threatened to enjoin Gau Shan from proceeding with the present action before a United States court could reach the merits of the parties’ claims. Bankers Trust, however, may achieve substantially the same result under Hong Kong law simply by instructing its appointed receiver to “voluntarily” dismiss the present action. Presumably the present management of Gau Shan has no desire to see its case dismissed, voluntarily or otherwise. Moreover, no such danger would arise under the laws of the United States. Thus, I find it troubling that Gau Shan, in its present form, may effectively be deprived of its day in court, any court, given the extraordinary powers afforded Bankers Trust under Hong Kong law.1
Still, our role is not to pass upon the wisdom or justice of foreign laws, but to ensure the proper interpretation of our own. I also note, with the majority, that Bankers Trust has assured the district court and this court that it would not exercise any of its receivership rights under Hong Kong law should it be permitted to proceed with its suit in Hong Kong. Ac*1360cordingly, I join in the majority’s analysis and opinion.

. Although the majority relies on Sea Containers Ltd. v. Stena AB, 890 F.2d 1205 (D.C.Cir.1989), for support, the facts of that case are distinguishable. As the court noted, the plaintiff in Sea Containers would have faced the danger of losing control of its company and having its case subsequently dismissed by new management only after the foreign tribunal had considered the merits of the opposing parties’ claim upon the parties’ motion for a preliminary injunction in that court. Id. at 1212. Here, by contrast, it appears that Gau Shan would only be entitled to a review of the appointment of a receiver upon a showing that its debt to Banker’s Trust was fraudulently obtained.