Stolt-Nielsen Societe Anonyme v. AnimalFeeds International Corporation

AnimalFeeds (plaintiff) brought antitrust claims against Stolt-Nielsen (defendant), and a panel of arbitrators, addressing whether an ambiguous charter-party arbitration clause permitted class arbitration, ruled that it did, following similar rulings in other contract types. The district court vacated the award for manifest disregard of federal maritime law, reasoning the panel skipped a choice-of-law analysis that would have applied maritime custom-and-usage law barring class arbitration; AnimalFeeds appealed to the Second Circuit.