EGYPT Law and Practice Contributed by: Muhammad Ussama and Adam El Shalakany, Shalakany Law Office
6.5 Interim Injunctions A disputing party can apply for interim injunctions. However, unlike other jurisdictions, it is not legally admissible to apply for an anti-suit injunction before Egyptian courts. For instance, a party that wishes to prevent an opposing party from resorting to courts due to the existence of an arbitration clause would have to wait until an opposing party does actually resort to courts and then the former could opt to appear before court to raise and submit arguments and defences, including those relating to the inadmissibility of the case due to the existence of an arbitration agreement. In Egypt, interim injunctions are typically granted prior to the initiation of a substantive dispute or during an ongoing dispute. 6.6 Summary Judgment In Egypt, a party can apply for summary judgment before trial. Egyptian courts would normally refuse to grant such an application unless court is confident, based on a surface-based review of the available evi- dence, that there exists a state of urgency, as well as that the applicant party would likely prevail in a substantive case. 7. Mass Claims and Class Actions 7.1 Procedural Mechanisms Class actions are not prohibited in Egyptian law. How- ever, the practice of Egyptian courts has resulted in narrowing the scope within which class actions are actually utilised in Egypt. According to Egyptian case law, two or more individuals or legal persons (such as companies) can bring forward a class action against one or more defendants, provided that the claimants can prove that they enjoy the same legal position that The individuals or legal persons acting as claimants in a class action must, in order to be found to have standing to sue in the relevant case, prove that they enjoy the same legal position as the other claimants. Further, such legal position must be found to have been affected or potentially affected by the legal or justifies the filing of a class action. 7.2 Standing Requirements
material act in relation to which the class action is filed. 7.3 Relief Akin to the general position under Egyptian law, relief available in class actions could comprise of specific performance and/or compensation. If the class action targets the cancellation of an administrative decree, then the relief available would grant the cancellation of the challenged administrative decree and/or com- pensation. 7.4 Class Actions, Mass Claims and Arbitration There have been no class actions and/or mass claims brought in arbitration in the last decade. This is because disputes that normally involve two or more parties acting as claimant, such as labour disputes, are pursued in litigation due to the existence of man- datory provisions that render such disputes non-arbi- trable. 7.5 Trends There are no key identifiable trends in class actions and mass claims in Egypt. In arbitration, disclosure of documents is commonly regulated by the IBA Guidelines on the Taking of Evi- dence in International Arbitration (which, pursuant to the international stance, are commonly accepted by practitioners and users of arbitration). It is safe to say that document production requests have become the norm in the majority of arbitrations for various stra- tegic reasons. Arbitral tribunals sitting in arbitration cases governed by Egyptian law decide on document production requests using the internationally-accept- ed criteria of proportionality and relevance. Based on the foregoing, a duty of disclosure does exist. How- ever, if a party opts not to comply with the arbitral tribunal’s order, the tribunal’s reaction would be to flag that non-compliance opens the door for the tribunal to make a negative inference. However, whether or not a negative inference is made by an arbitral tribunal depends on the relevant particulars; in other words, 8. Evidence 8.1 Disclosure
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