Kuwaiti Engineering Group v. Consortium of International Consultants, LLC
Decision Date | 29 April 2008 |
Docket Number | 3520. |
Parties | KUWAITI ENGINEERING GROUP, Appellant, v. CONSORTIUM OF INTERNATIONAL CONSULTANTS, LLC, Defendant, and SAFEGE CONSULTING ENGINEERS, Respondent. |
Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Dismissal of the complaint on forum non conveniens grounds (CPLR 327 [a]) was a provident exercise of discretion in this action where plaintiff, a Kuwaiti corporation, seeks to enforce a contract as a third-party beneficiary, and alleges, inter alia, tortious interference with its contract rights to act as agent for defendants in performing environmental consulting work in Kuwait. The motion court balanced the appropriate factors, including that defendant Consortium of International Consultants, LLC (CIC) is a Delaware limited liability company headquartered in Virginia, and Safege is a French corporation. The consulting work agreements at issue involved work to be wholly performed in Kuwait, and were negotiated, only in part, in New York, and were otherwise completed and executed outside New York. The conduct underlying the alleged interference with contractual rights occurred outside New York, and as agent to the consulting firms, plaintiff was obligated to obtain non-American, non-European union workers to assist the engineers in performing their work in Kuwait. Furthermore, the courts of either Kuwait or France provide viable alternative forums. Under these circumstances, we find that Safege met its heavy burden to establish that New York was an inconvenient forum (see e.g. Creditanstalt Inv. Bank AG v Chadbourne & Parke LLP, 14 AD3d 414, 415 [2005]), and that a substantial nexus between New York and this action was lacking (see Islamic Republic of Iran v Pahlavi, 62 NY2d 474 [1984], cert denied 469 US 1108 [1985]; Shin-Etsu Chem. Co., Ltd. v ICICI Bank Ltd., 9 AD3d 171 [2004]).
Although we agree with the motion court's dismissal of this...
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