Yesterday, a court in the Northern District of California granted Google’s request for an interlocutory injunction preventing Equustek from enforcing a Canadian de-listing order that was the subject of the Supreme Court of Canada decision earlier this year.

The decision (link), was unopposed although Equustek did write a letter objecting to the proceeding. Google had argued that, Canadian order was “unenforceable in the United States because is directly conflicts with the First Amendment, disregards the Communication Decency Act’s immunity for interactive service providers, and violates principles of international comity.”

The Supreme Court of Canada decision, Google Inc. v. Equustek Solutions Inc., 2017 SCC 34,  in granting the global injunction prohibiting Google from listing websites belonging to the defendant in the underlying Canadian proceeding, the court had said,

Google’s argument that a global injunction violates international comity because it is possible that the order could not have been obtained in a foreign jurisdiction, or that to comply with it would result in Google violating the laws of that jurisdiction is, with respect, theoretical. …    If Google has evidence that complying with such an injunction would require it to violate the laws of another jurisdiction, including interfering with freedom of expression, it is always free to apply to the British Columbia courts to vary the interlocutory order accordingly.