Corporate litigation: enforcing exclusive forum selection clauses in corporate organizational documents

Vice Chancellor Laster's recent decision in Edgen Group, Inc. v. Genoud illustrates the practical difficulties that Delaware corporations face in actually enforcing exclusive forum selection clauses. Although Vice Chancellor Laster criticized an Edgen Group stockholder for ignoring Edgen's forum selection clause and fling suit in Louisiana, he denied Edgen's request for an anti-suit injunction barring that Louisiana suit. Instead, he held that exclusive forum selection provisions should be enforced--at least in the first instance--in the non-Delaware jurisdiction in which the offending suit was filed.