MEMORANDUM & ORDER This case arises out of work that defendant NewFields Companies, LLC (“NewFields”), an environmental consulting firm, performed for the plaintiff companies, Brooklyn Union Gas Company d/b/a National Grid NY (“NGNY”), and its affiliate, National Grid USA Service Company, Inc. (“NG Service,” and together with NGNY, “National Grid”). Plaintiffs are natural gas companies; they retained the Defendant to analyze their potential liability for pollution in the Gowanus Canal, a heavily contaminated waterway in Brooklyn. They allege (among other things) that the Defendant labored under serious conflicts of interest in performing its analysis and misused their confidential information, in violation of several contracts. Plaintiffs allege specifically that NewFields breached three contracts — executed in 2005, 2009, and 2010 — that governed this relationship, and committed other state-law violations (breach of confidential relationship, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, constructive fraud, and professional negligence). It turns out that each contract was signed by a different National Grid entity (one of which is not a party to this action), and each contains a different choice-of-forum provision. Inevitably, this forum dispute ensued. Plaintiffs originally filed suit in New York State court. NewFields removed the action to this Court and subsequently moved to dismiss the complaint and compel arbitration. Plaintiffs oppose that motion and, in the alternative, seek to remand their claims under the 2009 contract. For the reasons set forth below, the claims under the 2005 contract are dismissed; NG Service’s claims under the 2009 contract are remanded to state court; and NGNY’s claims under the 2010 contract are stayed pending arbitration. I. Background National Grid’s predecessors owned and operated three “manufactured gas plants” (“MGPs”) near the Gowanus Canal (the “Canal”). Compl. 9, ECF No. 1-1. In 2010, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) added the Canal to the National Priorities (or “Superfund”) List, a designation that requires the responsible parties to remediate the site. Id. 39. Long before 2010, however, National Grid was aware that state and federal regulators might pursue it for cleanup costs. See id. 34. National Grid first retained Defendant in 2005 in connection with a “Voluntary Cleanup Agreement” with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and this engagement continued when the EPA designated the Canal a Superfund site. Id.
14, 35, 37. As part of its work, Defendant assessed National Grid’s responsibility for the accumulated pollutants in the Canal bed and issued two reports to National Grid, in 2007 and 2014, finding that MGPs were not a significant source of the Canal’s pollution. Id.
