Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc.

Summary

Justice Blackmun's opinion held that an arbitration agreement need not expressly identify statutory claims to encompass them and that Soler's Sherman Act claims were arbitrable under the agreement governing this international commercial transaction. The Court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded, leaving unresolved the arbitrability of antitrust claims arising from purely domestic transactions. Justice Stevens dissented, joined by Justice Brennan throughout and Justice Marshall except as to Part II. He argued that the clause did not cover the antitrust dispute, that ordinary arbitration clauses presumptively exclude unidentified statutory claims, and that the antitrust enforcement scheme precluded compelled arbitration notwithstanding the transaction's international character. Justice Powell did not participate.