Judge Paul Crotty
Under a 2012 corporate financing agreement (CFA)—containing a broadly worded arbitration provision—New York-based New Jersey firm MidOil USA and Australia's Astra Project formed a U.S-based holding company for their joint participation in investment banking programs. Astra Project refused MidOil's demand for arbitration of its underlying contract dispute asserting the CFA's breach. The court granted MidOil's motion to compel arbitration. In rejecting Astra Project's claim that personal jurisdiction over it was lacking because service did not satisfy the Hague Convention, the court noted the CFA's forum selection clause constituted consent to jurisdiction and that Astra Project had received actual notice of MidOil's petition to compel arbitration. The court further rejected Astra Project's claim that the arbitration clause was void from the beginning because it was fraudulently induced into entering into the CFA's arbitration provision. The court found no allegation of purported fraud specific to the arbitration provision. Citing Prima Paint v. Flood & Conklin Mfg., the court observed that the Federal Arbitration Act precludes courts from considering "claims of fraud in the inducement of the contract generally."
