Effect of Council Regulation 44/2001

English lawyers have now become used to the concept that it is no longer possible for the English courts to award an anti-suit injunction against a person who has commenced proceedings in some other EU court in breach of an exclusive jurisdiction clause. In Advent Capital plc v G N Ellinas Imports-Exports Ltd [2005] EWHC 1242 (Comm) Colman J considered a variation on the usual factual situation, that in which an anti-suit injunction was obtained in respect of proceedings brought in contravention of an English exclusive jurisdiction clause in Cyprus before the accession of Cyprus to the EU and to the Convention itself. Colman J was able to reach an elegant solution which in effect held the parties to their agreement.