Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 278.0

529US1

Unit: $U37

[09-26-01 08:37:34] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 193 (2000)

203

Opinion of the Court

U. S. C. §§ 204, 207, 302. But reading §§ 9–11 to restrict
venue to the site of the arbitration would preclude any action
under the FAA in courts of the United States to conﬁrm,
modify, or vacate awards rendered in foreign arbitrations not
covered by either convention. Cf. 4 I. MacNeil, R. Speidel,
& T. Stipanowich, Federal Arbitration Law § 44.9.1.8 (1995)
(discussing difﬁculties in enforcing foreign arbitrations held
in nonsignatory states). Although such actions would not
necessarily be barred for lack of jurisdiction, they would be
defeated by restrictions on venue, and anomalies like that
are to be avoided when they can be. True, “[t]here have
been, and perhaps there still are, occasional gaps in the
venue laws, [but] Congress does not in general intend to cre-
ate venue gaps, which take away with one hand what Con-
gress has given by way of jurisdictional grant with the other.
Thus, in construing venue statutes it is reasonable to prefer
the construction that avoids leaving such a gap.” Brunette
Machine Works, Ltd. v. Kockum Industries, Inc., 406 U. S.
706, 710, n. 8 (1972); cf. Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., 417
U. S. 506, 516–517 (1974) (noting that “[a] contractual provi-
sion specifying in advance the forum in which disputes shall
be litigated and the law to be applied is . . . an almost indis-
pensable precondition to achievement of the orderliness and
predictability essential to any international business transac-
tion,” and that “[a] parochial refusal by the courts of one
country to enforce an international arbitration agreement
would not only frustrate these purposes, but would invite
unseemly and mutually destructive jockeying by the parties
to secure tactical litigation advantages”).

Attention to practical consequences thus points away from
the restrictive reading of §§ 9–11 and conﬁrms the view that
the liberalizing effect of the provisions in the day of their
enactment was meant to endure through treating them as

to the arbitration may apply to any court having jurisdiction under this
chapter for an order conﬁrming the award.” Section 302 applies these
provisions to actions brought under the Inter-American Convention. Sec-
tions 204 and 207 were added to the FAA in 1970; § 302 was added in 1990.