In 1933 Reza Shah signed a deal selling Iranian oil extraction rights to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later called British Petroleum (BP). Though Iran was officially neutral at the start of World War II, its monarch was friendly towards the Axis. Following the 1941 Allied Invasion of Iran, Reza Shah was forced to abdicate in favour of his son Mohammad Reza Shah, who upheld the oil agreement with APOC, which by then had been renamed the "Anglo-Iranian Oil Company". When the first democratically elected parliament and prime minister in Iran took power in 1950 they planned to seize the oil assets in Iran that had been developed by the British, violating the still running oil contract with British Petroleum. The British government followed to court in the Hague's International Court, lost the case against Iran's new government and reacted by blockading the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, halting Iran's trade and economy. At this point Mohammad Reza Shah escaped Iran and took refugee in the West and the whole power went into hands of the elected government led by Mohammad Mosaddegh.