Pharmaceutical Processing Technology Inc v Sci-Chem International Pty Ltd

The parties involved in this case are Pharmaceutical Processing Technology Inc (the plaintiff) and Sci-Chem International Pty Ltd (the defendant). The dispute pertains to the validity of termination notices issued by the defendant, which the plaintiff alleges are invalid. The case was heard in the Federal Court of Australia. The plaintiff sought an interim injunction under Article 17J of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration to prevent the defendant from acting on the termination notices until the matter could be fully determined through arbitration.

The court needed to decide whether it should grant the plaintiff's application for an interim injunction. The key issues included whether there was a serious question to be tried concerning the validity of the termination notices, whether the plaintiff was likely to suffer harm for which damages would not be an adequate remedy in the short-term if the injunction was not granted, and whether the defendant was likely to suffer harm in the short-term. Additionally, the court had to consider that the plaintiff had commenced arbitration proceedings only four days after initiating the proceedings in this Court, and that the plaintiff accepted that the continuation of the injunction might be revisited by the arbitral tribunal.

The court determined that there was a serious question to be tried regarding the validity of the termination notices. It found that the plaintiff was likely to suffer harm that would not be adequately remedied by damages if the injunction was not granted, and that the defendant was not likely to suffer such harm in the short-term. Given that the plaintiff had already commenced arbitration proceedings and accepted that the conditions for a longer-term interim injunction were matters for the arbitrator, the court decided to grant an injunction only for the short period necessary for the plaintiff to apply expeditiously to the arbitral tribunal for any longer-term injunction. The court also noted that the plaintiff should provide security for its undertaking as to damages, a matter that was to be determined by the arbitrator.