Case of the Day: Nalco Co. v. Chen, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 21953 (7th Cir. Dec. 9, 2016)

Summary:

Nalco and Chen invested in a joint venture to sell environmental equipment in China. Defendant Chen previously filed a lawsuit against plaintiff Nalco in the Northern District of Illinois and lost. Chen then filed suit again in China, against a corporation that was effectively the same as Nalco but was nominally different. Nalco applied for an anti-suit injunction against Chen, and prevailed. Chen appealed.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that Chen's litigation in China effectively involves the same defendant and the claims arising from the same transaction.

Takeaway:

International anti-suit injunction--perhaps the most interesting U.S. litigation device in transnational litigation. In my forthcoming paper Equity Extraterritoriality, I propose that the court should do what it did not do here: invite the Chinese sovereign to express its interest in adjudicating this case before issuing the anti-suit injunction to be applied in Chinese courts.