Your Counterparty Went to Another Court Despite the Arbitration Clause: Can the DIFC Courts Stop Them?

Yes, if your arbitration is seated in the DIFC, and usually not if it is seated anywhere else. A DIFC anti-suit injunction protecting an arbitration agreement is a remedy of the seat. In Paul v Paxton, ARB 010/2026, on 21 May 2026, the Court of First Instance refused to lift an injunction against a party trying to annul a DIFC-seated award in the onshore Dubai Courts, because a challenge to the award had to be made at the seat. In Oran v Oved, CA 004/2025, the Court of Appeal discharged an injunction restraining English proceedings, holding that without a DIFC seat or another statutory gateway there was no jurisdiction to grant it, and that the applicant should have been required to prove its means or give security for its undertaking in damages. The gateways are now in Article 14 of Dubai Law No. 2 of 2025.

Each decision has a later chapter, shown in the table. Where the competing court is in Dubai, the Conflict of Jurisdiction Tribunal can decide which court goes on, and its rulings bind the DIFC Courts.

What does a DIFC anti-suit injunction stop, and what can it not undo?

It stops a person, not a court. The order requires the party that started the other proceedings to stop pursuing them, on pain of contempt in the DIFC Courts. It does not bind the other court or reverse what has already happened there. In Paul v Paxton the sub-contractor sued the main contractor in the Abu Dhabi courts in 2023 and enforced its judgment after an emergency arbitrator had ordered it to stay that case, but before the DIFC Court first restrained it in 2024. The main contractor pursued the money in the arbitration instead: the final award of 5 December 2025 awarded it the sums enforced under the Abu Dhabi judgment, on a claim that included damages for breach of the arbitration agreement.

An injunction also stops only what its words say. In Oran v Oved the order restrained one English application, but the judge's published reasons described a restraint on any proceedings anywhere, the Registry told the parties the wider reading was right, and the English stay hearing was vacated. The Court of Appeal said injunctive orders must be clear on their face, that breach is judged by their terms and not by correspondence, and that a judge who wants a wider order must amend it under Rule 36.45. Rule 25.27 puts it in one line: an injunction must set out clearly what the respondent must do or not do.

When will the DIFC Courts grant an anti-suit injunction for an arbitration agreement?

When the arbitration is seated in the DIFC, and the applicant can show that to a high degree of probability. Under Article 7 of the DIFC Arbitration Law the whole Law applies where the seat is the DIFC, but only Articles 13, 14 and 15, Part 4 and the Schedule apply where it is elsewhere. Article 14(A)(6) of the 2025 Law gives the DIFC Courts exclusive jurisdiction over claims related to an arbitration seated in the DIFC, held in the DIFC without an agreed seat, or where the parties chose the DIFC Courts for disputes arising from the arbitration. In Oran v Oved it was common ground that a DIFC seat would have given the Court jurisdiction to grant the injunction.

Where the seat is disputed, the bar is high. In Ledger v Leeor [2022] DIFC CA 013, on an urgent injunction against Dubai Courts proceedings, the judge required a high degree of probability that the parties had agreed to arbitrate with the DIFC as the seat, and the Court of Appeal said he had applied the correct test for interim relief. In Oran v Oved the judge applied the same test and was not satisfied, and the Court of Appeal did not revisit the test because neither side challenged it. Article 27(1) of the Arbitration Law supplies a DIFC seat only where the parties made no choice of seat and the dispute is governed by DIFC law.

The cards restate the three threshold points.

The seat is not the DIFC: what did Oran v Oved decide?

That the DIFC Courts had no jurisdiction, and that a power to grant injunctions cannot create it. The client's side sued in England for a refund of fees for an air ambulance service. The provider, an English company with no known assets in Dubai, asked the English court to stay the claim for arbitration, started a DIAC arbitration, and, the day before an English hearing of an application to restrain that arbitration, obtained a without-notice anti-suit injunction in the DIFC.

The judge was not satisfied to the required degree that the seat was the DIFC, but treated Article 32 of the 2004 Courts Law, which listed injunctions among the Court's powers, as an independent source of jurisdiction. The Court of Appeal disagreed: read that way, the Court could decide disputes between any parties anywhere in the world whenever an injunction was sought. Such provisions confer power for cases already within the Court's jurisdiction. For an anti-suit injunction protecting an arbitration agreement the only source, absent another head such as a party being a DIFC Establishment, is the Arbitration Law, whose supervisory reach stops at DIFC-seated arbitrations. Earlier first-instance statements that the Court could act for an onshore seat meant only that jurisdiction it otherwise had was not lost, to be exercised in an unusual and exceptional case.

The case was decided on the 2004 Law, which governed when the injunction was granted, but the 2025 text points the same way: Article 19(B)(3) gives the Court of First Instance jurisdiction over injunction applications subject to the jurisdiction in Article 14. In reasons on costs of 8 December 2025 the Chief Justice, sitting for the Court of Appeal, repeated that powers to grant injunctions are not sources of jurisdiction, and rejected the argument that the decision had changed the law. Article 15(4) of the 2025 Law covers suitable precautionary measures within the DIFC for arbitral proceedings outside it, but no published decision found in this research has used it to restrain proceedings in another court. Article 24(3) of the Arbitration Law gives the Court interim powers in relation to arbitration proceedings irrespective of whether their place is in the DIFC, but it is not among the provisions Article 7 applies where the seat is elsewhere, and Oran v Oved did not discuss it. A June 2026 consultation draft would put a similar power into Article 15, which applies whatever the seat, but it is a proposal, not law.

Key takeaway. A power to grant an injunction is not jurisdiction to grant it. Without a DIFC seat or another statutory gateway, the DIFC Courts cannot restrain proceedings elsewhere, however clear the breach may look.

Do DIFC law, the old DIFC-LCIA rules or a DIFC counterparty change the answer?

Governing law does not, the old rules did not in Oran v Oved or Ledger v Leeor, and a DIFC counterparty rarely does. The Court of Appeal held in Oran v Oved that a contract governed by DIFC law is not for that reason within the DIFC Courts' jurisdiction, and that the Law Relating to the Application of DIFC Laws assumes jurisdiction rather than conferring it. The DIFC-LCIA itself is history. Decree No. (34) of 2021 abolished the DIFC Arbitration Institute, under which that centre operated, and kept agreements to arbitrate there valid, with DIAC in its place unless the parties agree otherwise. Who now administers such a clause is covered in our guide to an arbitrator appointment deadlock.

Ledger v Leeor is the plainest warning. The developer argued that the DIAC statute attached to the Decree made the DIFC the default seat of a clause naming the DIFC-LCIA rules and Dubai as the place, and could not show it to the required standard. In its related claim for declarations, CFI 051/2022, the Court of First Instance upheld the contractor's jurisdiction challenge in November 2022. In an order of 2 May 2023 a single judge of the Court of Appeal refused renewed permission to appeal, reasoning that the curial law and the seat are synonymous, that the arbitration's law was that of the UAE and Dubai and its place Dubai, not the DIFC, and that the DIFC Courts could not interfere with the onshore courts' refusal to refer the dispute to arbitration.

A counterparty that is a DIFC Establishment brings in Article 14(A)(1) of the 2025 Law, and jurisdiction held on that basis is not lost because the seat is elsewhere. But the Court of Appeal, explaining earlier first-instance decisions, said it would then be exercised only in an unusual and exceptional case, because, as one of those decisions put it, the courts of the seat can supervise the arbitration and grant any injunction needed.

Can the other side say the arbitration agreement does not bind it?

Yes, and the DIFC Court may not be the place to decide it. Article 12(2) of the Arbitration Law says an agreement to arbitrate future disputes under an employment contract, or a contract supplying goods or services to a consumer, cannot be enforced against the employee or consumer without his written consent after the dispute arises, his submission to the arbitration, or a DIFC Court order disapplying the Article. In Oran v Oved the agent who engaged the service acted outside his own trade, so the contract was a consumer contract, and a clause letting the supplier nominate the sole arbitrator was clearly detrimental to the consumer. Even a DIFC seat would not have saved the injunction.

Where the existence of the agreement is contested, a judge should not decide it on limited evidence when another forum is about to hear full evidence on it. The English court was weeks from a stay hearing on whether the clause had been incorporated from printed standard terms. If a tribunal has already ruled on its own jurisdiction, see our guide to a tribunal's preliminary jurisdiction ruling.

The other side wants a DIFC-seated award annulled in the Dubai Courts: can you stop it?

Paul v Paxton, a first-instance decision, says yes, because the challenge belongs at the seat. The sub-contract chose the DIFC as the seat and named the DIFC-LCIA rules, for which DIAC had been substituted. After an award for the main contractor, the sub-contractor sued in the Dubai Courts on 3 January 2026 to set it aside. The DIFC Court granted an injunction without notice in February 2026 and continued it after a return date the sub-contractor did not attend. The sub-contractor appears to have carried on, and on 30 March 2026 the Dubai Court of Appeal refused to set the award aside on grounds of jurisdiction, a decision the DIFC order records as open to appeal.

The application to lift or vary the injunction was dismissed. The sub-contractor had put forward no ground entitling it to challenge the award in the Dubai Courts, it had agreed to the DIFC Courts' supervisory jurisdiction, its complaints of res judicata and procedural unfairness had to be raised at the seat, and a party may not sue elsewhere simply because it would prefer an adjudication there. Article 41 of the Arbitration Law says the same: an application to set aside is the only recourse to a court against an award made in the DIFC seat, and it may be made only to the DIFC Court, as our guide to setting aside a DIFC-seated award explains. Searches on 15 October 2026 found no appeal from the May order and no published Tribunal decision in this dispute.

Who decides when the DIFC Courts and the Dubai Courts both claim the case?

The Conflict of Jurisdiction Tribunal, if a party asks it. Under Decree No. (29) of 2024, where the DIFC Courts and another judicial body in Dubai both keep or both decline jurisdiction over a claim, or give conflicting judgments, a litigant may ask the Tribunal to decide which is competent. Once its authority is established, the conflicting claims are stayed, enforcement is stayed where the question is which judgment to enforce, and limitation periods are suspended. Its decisions on the competent court are final, and the rules of law it lays down bind every judicial body in Dubai, the DIFC Courts included.

For a DIFC-seated award the Tribunal has sided with the seat. In Application No. 007/2025, decided on 16 December 2025, the Dubai Courts had ratified a DIAC award at the winner's request while the loser sought annulment in the DIFC. The Tribunal held that jurisdiction lay exclusively with the DIFC Courts under Article 14(A)(6) of the 2025 Law, because the parties had agreed the DIFC as the seat, and directed the Dubai Courts to cease the ratification case and all related procedures.

Its remit is conflicts between the DIFC Courts and judicial bodies in the Emirate of Dubai, so on the Decree's terms it does not reach courts elsewhere in the UAE or abroad. A referral cannot revive a DIFC route that has already failed. The developer in Ledger v Leeor applied to the tribunal then in place in September 2022. On 16 January 2024 that tribunal, since reconstituted under Decree No. (29) of 2024, dismissed the application in Cassation No. 9/2022: the DIFC claim had been finally decided against DIFC jurisdiction and the Dubai Courts had decided their own jurisdiction at every stage, so there was no conflict to resolve.

Common mistake. Treating a counterclaim in the other court as harmless. In the Ledger dispute a single judge of the Court of Appeal treated the developer's counterclaim in the Dubai Courts as a concession of their jurisdiction, one of the reasons he gave for refusing permission to appeal.

Should you apply without notice?

Only with a reason the rules accept. Part 25 of the Rules of the DIFC Courts allows an interim remedy without notice if there are good reasons for not giving it, and the evidence must say why notice was not given and set out all material facts. An order made without notice must carry the applicant's undertaking to serve the papers and a return date at which the other side can be present. A claim affecting an arbitration agreement is started by arbitration claim form under Part 43, with any application for the Court's own interim measure decided under Part 25.

Urgency in the other litigation is not enough. In Ledger v Leeor the developer feared that the contractor, if warned, would speed up the Dubai proceedings. The Court of Appeal said proceedings without notice are exceptional, that this was not a case of assets being dissipated or evidence destroyed, and that fear of tactical use of the other court's procedures is not a sufficient basis for going without notice. Any final hearing should be on notice, and the Court suggested giving the Dubai Courts notice of the application. In Paul v Paxton a complaint that the applicant had hidden the onshore proceedings failed, because they and the earlier Abu Dhabi judgment were plain from the application and the award.

What will the undertaking in damages cost, and when must it be secured?

The undertaking is close to automatic, and an applicant with no assets in the UAE should expect to back it. Rule 25.25(1) requires an injunction order, unless the Court orders otherwise, to contain the applicant's undertaking to pay any damages the respondent sustains that the Court considers the applicant should pay. An applicant that cannot show sufficient assets within the jurisdiction may have to reinforce it with security, such as a payment into court, an insurance bond, or a first demand guarantee or standby credit from a first-class bank.

In Oran v Oved the judge had treated security as a non-issue because the order favoured the applicant, reasoning the Court of Appeal found difficult to comprehend. The undertaking is the almost invariable price of an interim injunction, it said, and the giver's creditworthiness goes to the balance of convenience. Faced with an English company and no evidence of assets in the UAE or of its capacity to pay, the only course was to require evidence of means or security. The injunction should not have been granted, and the other side may well have suffered loss from the disruption in England. Our guide to recovering losses after a discharged freezing order explains how such a claim is pursued.

What does an injunction that fails, or outlives its purpose, cost?

Costs, possibly all of them. In Oran v Oved the Court of Appeal ordered the company that obtained the injunction to pay the other side's costs of the whole proceedings, including the appeal. On assessment the jurisdiction objection was held necessary, because without it the proceedings would have remained on foot, and errors in the first-instance orders did not shift the burden, since the other side had to answer proceedings brought in a court with no jurisdiction to entertain them. The costs were assessed at AED 720,000, a figure that belongs to its case. The same reasons record that the other side later obtained an anti-arbitration injunction in England.

An injunction can also outlive its purpose. In Ohtli v Onora, ARB 034/2025, an interim injunction against onshore Dubai proceedings, granted in September 2025 to protect a DIFC-seated DIAC arbitration, was discharged in December 2025 because the onshore claim had been withdrawn and the arbitration was under way. Anti-suit relief is discretionary and must answer a real and present need, the Court said, and a feared future claim was not enough, so the applicant was ordered to pay the costs of the discharge application. In Paul v Paxton, where the injunction held, an order of 23 September 2026 gave the award creditor indemnity costs in principle of the failed attempt to lift it, assessed at USD 25,000, again a case figure.

The cards restate what an applicant pays for and risks.

What happens if the other side ignores the injunction?

It risks contempt, and the Court may refuse to act on its applications until it complies. In Paul v Paxton the Court was very troubled that the sub-contractor appeared simply to have ignored its orders and done nothing to end the Dubai proceedings, said the conduct appeared contumelious, and said contempt proceedings would appear to have a proper basis. It will, in appropriate circumstances, not act on the urging of a party in contempt until the contempt is purged, although it decided the substance anyway. In July 2026 the award creditor applied to commit three further respondents, one of them a law firm, and an order re-issued on 28 July 2026 provisionally listed a public hearing for a date not before 14 September 2026. No decision had been published by 15 October 2026, and an allegation is not a finding.

Article 35 of the 2025 Law makes failing to comply with a DIFC Courts order punishable by a fine and allows referral to the Attorney General, and Part 52 of the Rules governs committal. Our guide to a DIFC contempt application covers the procedure.

What else can you do if an injunction is not available?

Use the other court's own tools or the arbitration itself. Ask the other court to stay its proceedings in favour of arbitration: in Oran v Oved the Court of Appeal held that the English court was clearly the more appropriate forum to decide whether the arbitration agreement existed and was enforceable, or whether to leave that to the arbitrator. Raise the arbitration agreement in an onshore court at the outset, as the developer in Ledger v Leeor did in its defence, and think hard before counterclaiming there. Ask the tribunal, or an emergency arbitrator before it is constituted, to order the other side to stop: in Paul v Paxton an emergency arbitrator did so in November 2023, and although the order was ignored, the tribunal later awarded the main contractor the sums enforced against it. And if the counterparty sues in the DIFC Courts themselves, the remedy is a request under Article 13 of the Arbitration Law to stay that claim, covered in our guide to being sued in the DIFC despite an arbitration clause.

How should the application be prepared?

The order of work follows the questions the Court asks.

1. Fix the seat from the clause, incorporated rules and later agreements, and test it against the high degree of probability standard.
2. If the seat is not the DIFC, identify another gateway in Article 14 of the 2025 Law first, and expect restraint only in an unusual and exceptional case even then.
3. Check that the agreement binds the other side, including the consumer and employment limits in Article 12(2) and any dispute about incorporation.
4. Map the other proceedings: the court, the stage, the relief sought, the next hearing and any stay application pending there.
5. If the other court is in Dubai, decide whether a referral to the Conflict of Jurisdiction Tribunal is the better route or a necessary companion.
6. Prepare evidence of means, or the security you can offer, for the undertaking in damages, especially if the applicant has no assets in the UAE.
7. Draft the order narrowly and precisely, naming the proceedings and the steps restrained, because breach is judged by the order's words.
8. Give notice unless there is a real reason not to, disclose everything material, and keep the record a contempt or costs application will need.

What do applicants in this position get wrong?

The recurring error is treating the breach as the case. A counterparty that sues elsewhere despite an arbitration clause may well be in breach, but in these decisions the result turned first on the seat and the gateway, then on whether the agreement bound the other side, and only then on whether restraint was justified. The second error is ignoring cost: the applicant in Oran v Oved was ordered to pay for the whole proceedings, and the applicant in Ohtli v Onora was ordered to pay the costs of a discharge application after the onshore claim had been dropped. The third is assuming the DIFC Courts have the last word in a conflict with the Dubai Courts, when the Conflict of Jurisdiction Tribunal decides that. Every source cited here was read on 15 October 2026, the Arbitration Law in its officially published consolidation of December 2013, and searches of the published DIFC Courts and Tribunal lists are not a court-file certification.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can the DIFC Courts stop proceedings in England or another foreign court? Only if they have jurisdiction, which for an arbitration agreement normally means the arbitration is seated in the DIFC. In Oran v Oved the Court of Appeal discharged an injunction restraining English proceedings because a DIFC seat had not been shown and no other gateway applied, holding that a power to grant injunctions is not a source of jurisdiction. Even with jurisdiction, the Court asks whether the other court is the better place to decide the dispute about the arbitration agreement.

Our clause names Dubai as the place of arbitration. Is that a DIFC seat? Not necessarily. At the interim stage the applicant must show a DIFC seat to a high degree of probability. In Ledger v Leeor a clause naming the DIFC-LCIA rules, Dubai as the place and UAE and Dubai law for the procedure did not meet that test, and in the related claim a single judge of the Court of Appeal later said the seat was Dubai, not the DIFC. Each clause turns on its own words.

Does it help that the other side is a DIFC company? It can give the DIFC Courts jurisdiction under Article 14(A)(1) of Dubai Law No. 2 of 2025, and a foreign seat does not take that away. But the Court of Appeal explained in Oran v Oved that where the arbitration is seated elsewhere the Court would exercise that jurisdiction only in an unusual and exceptional case, because, as an earlier decision it explained put it, the courts of the seat can supervise the arbitration and grant any injunction needed.

The other side has asked the Dubai Courts to annul our DIFC-seated award. What can we do? Ask the DIFC Court to restrain it, and consider the Conflict of Jurisdiction Tribunal. Article 41 of the DIFC Arbitration Law makes an application to the DIFC Court the only recourse against a DIFC-seated award, and in Paul v Paxton the Court refused to lift an injunction against onshore annulment proceedings for that reason. In Application No. 007/2025 the Tribunal held the DIFC Courts exclusively competent over a DIFC-seated award and told the Dubai Courts to stop their ratification proceedings.

Will I have to provide security for my undertaking in damages? Possibly, especially if you have no assets in the UAE. Rule 25.25(1) of the Rules of the DIFC Courts lets the Court require security, such as a payment into court or a bank guarantee, where the applicant cannot show sufficient assets within the jurisdiction. In Oran v Oved the Court of Appeal held that, faced with an English applicant with no evidence of assets in the UAE or of its capacity to pay, the judge had to require evidence of means or security.

Can I apply without telling the other side? Only for a good reason, explained in your evidence. In Ledger v Leeor the Court of Appeal said a fear that the other side would speed up the onshore proceedings if warned was not a sufficient basis for proceeding without notice, and that a final hearing should be on notice. Any order made without notice must provide a return date at which the other side can be present.

What happens if the injunction is later discharged? You may face a claim on your undertaking in damages and an order for costs. In Oran v Oved the injunction was discharged for want of jurisdiction, the Court of Appeal noted that the other side may well have suffered loss, and the applicant was ordered to pay the costs of the whole proceedings. In Ohtli v Onora an injunction that was no longer needed was discharged and the applicant was ordered to pay the costs of the discharge application.

Is the June 2026 DIFC arbitration consultation now law? No. Consultation Paper No. 2 of 2026 proposes, among other changes, giving the DIFC Court in Article 15 the same power to issue interim measures in relation to arbitration proceedings, irrespective of whether their place is in the DIFC, as it has for its own proceedings. The paper says the draft should not be relied on until it is formally enacted, and no enactment notice for it was found in the DIFC legal database on 15 October 2026.

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a qualified advocate for advice on your specific situation.

Related Guides

Our arbitration page separates the institution, the seat, the governing law and the enforcement destination, and covers challenges to an award.

• You Lost a DIFC-Seated Arbitration: Can the Court Set Aside the Award?
• The Freezing Order Was Discharged: Can I Recover My Losses?
• A DIFC Contempt Application Names You and a Director: How Do You Answer It?