“Collision Course: The Consequences of Conflicting Forum-Selection Provisions”

Confronted with conflicting dispute resolution provisions between the employment and LLC agreements that encompassed the relationship between a principal of an investment firm and his partners, the Delaware Chancery Court issued this opinion in Fairstead Capital Management LLC v. Blodgett. Sidley Austin’s Heather Benzmiller Sultanian and Rebecca B. Shafer provide a thorough analysis of the court’s decision, and the pitfalls of inconsistent dispute resolution provisions, in this article, available on Lexology. With the court concluding that the disputes in the Fairstead Capital case would need to be adjudicated in multiple fora, the takeaway in the article is that “drafters of agreements should be cognizant of other potentially intersecting contracts and should draft forum-selection clauses with an eye toward avoiding potentially costly and inefficient ‘collisions’ between arbitration and the courts.”