National Iranian Oil Company v. Ashland Oil, Inc.

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• recognizing party may not rely on impracticability doctrine if it affirmatively caused unanticipated event preventing performance
• noting also that plaintiff in fact had attempted and may still have been attempting to compel arbitration in Iran
• where parties intended that the laws and procedures of a particular forum would govern arbitration between them, a federal court need not compel arbitration if that forum is unavailable
• “Whether the agreement to arbitrate is entire or severable turns on the parties’ intent at the time the agreement was executed, as determined from the language of the contract and the surrounding circumstances.”
• “By bringing suit in a district other than the districts designated in the forum selection clause, the plaintiff in Dupuy-Busching in effect had waived the right to its bargain.” (citation omitted)
• Iran was allegedly unavailable because it was too dangerous after the hostage crisis

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).