The trustee had previously obtained Beddoe  relief from the Grand Court directing that it could participate in the Hong Kong proceedings and to issue a summons seeking to clarify the identity of the beneficiaries of the trust. Those applications proceeded on the explicit understanding that the trustees would be continuing to administer the disputed assets through their control of the shares in the claimed companies. The trustee had also given undertakings not to deal with the shares without notice to the respondents. The effect was that the trustees were in control of the companies in the interim.

The day after the Beddoe  relief was perfected, certain beneficiaries applied to the court in Hong Kong for an injunction restraining the trustees from disposing of any assets of the claimed companies and for the appointment of a receiver over the shares of the claimed companies.

The trustees applied for and obtained an anti-suit injunction restraining the beneficiaries who had issued this application in Hong Kong. In granting that injunction, the Grand Court accepted that those proceedings amounted to a collateral attack on the Beddoe  order and involved a breach of confidentiality provisions in that order. The relevant beneficiaries withdrew their application in Hong Kong. However, only seven days after withdrawing one set of proceedings, the beneficiaries filed another application in Hong Kong to appoint receivers over the shares of the claimed companies.

The power to grant an anti-suit injunction requires either an agreement for exclusive jurisdiction of the court, or that the relevant court is the natural forum for the resolution of the dispute, and the conduct of the party to be injuncted is unconscionable. Justice Kawaley referred to the decision of the English Court of Appeal in Star Reefers Pool v JCF Group. Rix LJ had held that the unconscionability of the foreign claimant is often found in the very reason that they first submitted to the jurisdiction and then sought to extract themselves or oppressively to prolong the litigation by commencing further proceedings overseas. Justice Kawaley found the proposition that the relevant beneficiaries’ conduct was abusive uncomplicated on the facts of the case. The relevant beneficiaries had already been restrained once from seeking to undermine the Beddoe  order. The concerns which appeared to form the basis of the new application were matters which were or could have been raised in the Beddoe  proceedings.

The case demonstrates that the Grand Court will, in appropriate circumstances, grant relief in respect of proceedings designed to undermine the effect of its own orders.