The opinion
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT MAY 02 2011
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
THE RICE CORPORATION, a Delaware No. 09-17687
corporation, dba The Rice Company,
D.C. No. 2:06-CV-1516-GEB
Plaintiff - Appellant,
MEMORANDUM*
v.
GRAIN BOARD OF IRAQ, an Iraqi state
company; IRAQI MINISTRY OF
TRADE, an Iraqi state agency,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of California
Garland E. Burrell, Jr., District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted April 13, 2011
San Francisco, California
Before: KOZINSKI, Chief Judge, N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judge, and BLOCK,
District Judge.**
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The Honorable Frederic Block, Senior United States District Judge for
the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.
1. Paragraph 18 of the parties’ contract is necessarily mandatory and
exclusive: A dispute that “shall be settled . . . final[ly] and conclusive[ly]” by an
Iraqi court cannot, as a matter of logic, be resolved by any other. Cf. The Bremen
v. Zapata Off-Shore Co., 407 U.S. 1, 2, 20 (1972).
2. Appellant failed to carry its “heavy burden of showing that trial in
the chosen forum would be so difficult and inconvenient that [it] effectively would
be denied a meaningful day in court.” Pelleport Investors, Inc. v. Budco Quality
Theatres, Inc., 741 F.2d 273, 281 (9th Cir. 1984); see also The Bremen, 407 U.S. at
16 (“[W]here it can be said with reasonable assurance that at the time they entered
the contract, the parties to a freely negotiated private international commercial
agreement contemplated the claimed inconvenience, it is difficult to see why any
such claim of inconvenience should be heard to render the forum clause
unenforceable.”). Even taking the facts in the light most favorable to appellant, see
Murphy v. Schneider Nat’l, Inc., 362 F.3d 1133, 1139 (9th Cir. 2004), we hold that
the district court did not abuse its discretion in enforcing Paragraph 18.
AFFIRMED.
2