Tecnimont S.p.A. (Italian) (“Tecnimont”) and MT Russia LLC (“MTR”) were engaged by LLC EuroChem North-West-2 (“NW2”), a Russian company, as contractors to build a urea and ammonia plant in Russia. The dispute resolution clauses were materially identical and provided for London-seated ICC arbitration.
Tecnimont and MTR argued that sanctions and export controls prevented performance and led to suspension. NW2 disputed that position and purported to terminate the contracts in August 2022. The contractors commenced arbitration in August 2022. NW2 filed a defence and counterclaim seeking substantial damages (in the region of €1 billion) and return of advance payments.
In parallel, NW2 pursued claims in the English Commercial Court against banks which had issued performance bonds supporting the contractors’ obligations. In July 2025, Bright J dismissed those claims, holding that the bonds were unenforceable by reason of the EU sanctions regime. He also held NW2 to be controlled by a designated person, Mr Andrey Melnichenko.
Following the English performance bond decision, NW2 (and its group) commenced and pursued proceedings before the Russian courts in relation to the same underlying contractual disputes (i.e., substantive proceedings to recover the amounts counterclaimed in the arbitration) and “anti-arbitration” proceedings seeking to restrain the contractors from pursuing the London arbitration. The Russian courts granted interim measures against Tecnimont and MTR in October 2025 for the seizure of moveable funds and property worth approximately €103 million.
Tecnimont and MTR in turn sought relief from the Arbitral Tribunal with respect to the Russian proceedings. The Arbitral Tribunal, exercising its powers under Section 41(5) of the English Arbitration Act (If without showing sufficient cause a party fails to comply with any order or directions of the tribunal, the tribunal may make a peremptory order to the same effect, prescribing such time for compliance with it as the tribunal considers appropriate) concluded that certain Russian proceedings were flagrant breaches of the arbitration agreements and issued peremptory orders requiring NW2 to withdraw those proceedings and to procure the discharge of the Russian interim measures.
NW2 did not comply and Tecnimont and MTR sought the English court’s support under s.42 Arbitration Act 1996 (Enforcement of peremptory orders of tribunal) to enforce the peremptory orders made in favour of Tecnimont and MTR.
On 21 November 2025, Butcher J granted an injunction (endorsed with a penal notice) requiring NW2 to comply immediately with the tribunal’s peremptory orders, including withdrawing the Russian substantive proceedings; withdrawing the Russian anti-arbitration proceedings; and taking steps to extinguish or discharge the interim measures granted by the Russian courts.
In reaching this conclusion, Butcher J rejected an argument that the tribunal lacked jurisdiction because the measures were not “interim or conservatory” under the ICC Rules and found that s.42 could be used to enforce peremptory orders by an arbitral tribunal granting anti-suit relief, as being necessary for the proper conduct of the arbitration.
NW2 was also granted permission to appeal on a limited point of general importance concerning the scope of s.42 (reflecting the statutory limits on appeals under that section). Prior to the hearing of the appeal, it was clear that NW2 would not comply with Butcher J’s order. The Russian courts proceeded to grant relief in NW2’s favour, including (i) a judgment in the Russian substantive proceedings awarding damages in an amount equivalent to approximately US$2.19 billion, handed down on 27 November 2025, and (ii) the granting of the anti-arbitration injunctions designed to halt the arbitration on 10 December 2025, which the contractors said exposed them to penalties on a scale posing an existential threat to MTR.
Despite the rapid development of the Russian proceedings, NW2’s appeal focused on whether the court had jurisdiction under s.42 to enforce a peremptory order for anti-suit relief at all, contending this was “external” to the arbitration and properly within s.37 SCA only (which is the basis on which anti-suit relief is typically granted by the English courts).
On 13 January 2026, the Court of Appeal dismissed NW2’s appeal, finding that s.42 does allow the court to enforce a peremptory order granting anti-suit relief. Given this conclusion, the Court declined to express any view on whether the same or similar relief should be granted pursuant to s.37 SCA.
The Court held that the correct interpretation of s.41(5) is that a tribunal is permitted to make a peremptory order for failure to comply with “any order or directions”, subject to the condition that the order or directions were ones which tribunal had the power to make.
The Court also emphasised that compliance with tribunal orders is “necessary” for the proper and expeditious conduct of arbitration. Otherwise, certain tribunal orders could be ignored with impunity, undermining party autonomy and the Arbitration Act’s purpose of supporting arbitration. It was also specifically confirmed by the court that both (i) relief restraining parallel substantive proceedings in a non-contractual forum, and (ii) “anti-anti-arbitration” relief restraining foreign proceedings aimed at stopping or impeding the arbitration are capable of being necessary for the proper and expeditious conduct of arbitration proceedings.
The dispute then moved from “anti-suit” to “anti-enforcement”. After Butcher J’s order was upheld on appeal, the Arbitral Tribunal made further orders restraining NW2 from taking steps to enforce the Russian judgments and orders obtained in breach of the arbitration agreements. It then transpired that NW2 had commenced enforcement actions outside Russia, including in India and Malaysia, on 22 December 2025.
The Arbitral Tribunal issued a further peremptory order requiring NW2 to (i) confirm compliance with the earlier order and (ii) take steps to bring any enforcement proceedings already commenced to an end, including by withdrawing them and/or securing the discharge of any resulting orders.
In February 2026, with an enforcement hearing imminent in India, the claimants applied to the English High Court for anti-enforcement relief under s.37 SCA and/or s.42 of the Arbitration Act.
The court therefore had to determine whether to (i) enforce the tribunal’s latest peremptory anti-enforcement order (under s.42), and (ii) additionally grant broader injunctive relief (under s.37 SCA) going beyond the scope of the tribunal’s peremptory order (in substance, forward-looking relief to restrain all future proceedings in Russia or elsewhere).
On s.42, Moulder J treated the jurisdictional point as settled by the Court of Appeal: anti-suit relief fell within the scope of s.42, and she considered that it followed that an anti-enforcement injunction (to enjoin proceedings seeking to enforce orders obtained in breach of an anti-suit injunction) would also similarly be within the scope of s.42.
However, Moulder J refused to grant the broader injunctive relief sought by Tecnimont and MTR under s.37 SCA. As a matter of law, whilst s.37 remained available at the court’s discretion, she held that it would not, in this case, be just and convenient to grant s.37 relief going beyond the tribunal’s peremptory order, on the basis that s.42(3) provided that “the court shall not act unless it is satisfied that the applicant has exhausted any available arbitral process in respect of failure to comply with the peremptory order”, i.e., that the applicants’ primary recourse remained with the Arbitral Tribunal and that obtaining further peremptory orders would not cause undue delay given the Tribunal’s swift handling of prior applications in this case.
The court also rejected the proposition that s.37 relief was required to “support” the earlier s.42 order issued by Butcher J on the basis that if a court order under s.42 is not complied with, contempt proceedings would provide a suitable remedy, and a further s.37 injunction would not be the appropriate enforcement mechanism.
Taken together, these decisions illustrate a clear trajectory in the English courts’ approach to anti-suit and anti-enforcement relief in fast-evolving cross-border disputes – including with respect to the risk of parallel proceedings that have become prevalent in the Russian Sanctions context:
For commercial parties, arbitration and court relief strategies must be carefully aligned. Although the English courts have exercised their discretion under s.37 SCA to grant anti-suit injunctions in several cases arising out of the Russian Sanctions regime, there remain situations where they may not do so. In particular, the courts may decline relief where granting an injunction would materially expand upon orders already made by a constituted arbitral tribunal on the same issue.
There is a broader message, however, that remains positive: the affirmation of tribunal authority to order anti-suit relief and the availability of court enforcement and sanction under the Arbitration Act provides a powerful mechanism to uphold arbitration agreements and protect English-seated arbitration proceedings from derailment through foreign court proceedings.