ment Corp. v. J. P. Maguire & Co., 391 F. 2d 821 (CA2 1968), uniformly had held that the rights conferred by the antitrust laws were "of a character inappropriate for enforcement by arbitration."" App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 83-1569, p. B9, quoting Wilko v. Swan, 201 F. 2d 439, 444 (CA2 1953), rev'd, 346 U. S. 427 (1953). The District Court held, however, that the international character of the Mitsubishi-Soler undertaking required enforcement of the agreement to arbitrate even as to the antitrust claims. It relied on Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., 417 U. S. 506, 515-520 (1974), in which this Court ordered arbitration, pursuant to a provision embodied in an international agreement, of a claim arising under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 notwithstanding its assumption, arguendo, that Wilko, supra, which held nonarbitrable claims arising under the Securities Act of 1933, also would bar arbitration of a 1934 Act claim arising in a domestic context.

The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. 723 F. 2d 155 (1983). It first rejected Soler's argument that Puerto Rico law precluded enforcement of an agreement obligating a local dealer to arbitrate controversies outside Puerto Rico. It also rejected Soler's suggestion that it could not have intended to arbitrate statutory claims not mentioned in the arbitration agreement. Assessing arbitrability "on an allegation-byallegation basis," id., at 159, the court then read the arbitra

'Soler relied on P. R. Laws Ann., Tit. 10, § 278b-2 (Supp. 1983), which purports to render null and void "[a]ny stipulation that obligates a dealer to adjust, arbitrate or litigate any controversy that comes up regarding his dealer's contract outside of Puerto Rico, or under foreign law or rule of law." See Walborg Corp. v. Superior Court, 104 P. R. R. 258 (1975). The Court of Appeals held this provision pre-empted by 9 U. S. C. §2, which declares arbitration agreements valid and enforceable “save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract." 723 F. 2d, at 158. See Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S. 1 (1984). See also Ledee v. Ceramiche Ragno, 684 F. 2d 184 (CA1 1982). Soler does not challenge this holding in its cross-petition here.

tion clause to encompass virtually all the claims arising under the various statutes, including all those arising under the Sherman Act.9

9

As the Court of Appeals saw it, "[t]he question . . . is not whether the arbitration clause mentions antitrust or any other particular cause of action, but whether the factual allegations underlying Soler's counterclaims-and Mitsubishi's bona fide defenses to those counterclaims-are within the scope of the arbitration clause, whatever the legal labels attached to those allegations." 723 F. 2d, at 159. Because Soler's counterclaim under the Puerto Rico Dealers' Contracts Act focused on Mitsubishi's alleged failure to comply with the provisions of the Sales Agreement governing delivery of automobiles, and those provisions were found in that portion of Article I of the Agreement subject to arbitration, the Court of Appeals placed this first counterclaim within the arbitration clause. Id., at 159-160.

The court read the Sherman Act counterclaim to raise issues of wrongful termination of Soler's distributorship, wrongful failure to ship ordered parts and vehicles, and wrongful refusal to permit transshipment of stock to the United States and Latin America. Because the existence of just cause for termination turned on Mitsubishi's allegations that Soler had breached the Sales Agreement by, for example, failing to pay for ordered vehicles, the wrongful termination claim implicated at least three provisions within the arbitration clause: Article I-D(1), which rendered a dealer's orders "firm"; Article I-E, which provided for "distress unit penalties" where the dealer prevented timely shipment; and Article I-F, specifying payment obligations and procedures. The court therefore held the arbitration clause to cover this dispute. Because the nonshipment claim implicated Soler's obligation under Article I-F to proffer acceptable credit, the court found this dispute covered as well. And because the transshipment claim prompted Mitsubishi defenses concerning the suitability of vehicles manufactured to Soler's specifications for use in different locales and Soler's inability to provide warranty service to transshipped products, it implicated Soler's obligation under Article IV, another covered provision, to make use of Mitsubishi's trademarks in a manner that would not dilute Mitsubishi's reputation and goodwill or damage its name and reputation. The court therefore found the arbitration agreement also to include this dispute, noting that such trademark concerns "are relevant to the legality of territorially based restricted distribution arrangements of the sort at issue here." 723 F. 2d, at 160-161, citing Continental T. V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U. S. 36 (1977).

The Court of Appeals read the federal Automobile Dealers' Day in Court Act claim to raise issues as to Mitsubishi's good faith in establishing

Finally, after endorsing the doctrine of American Safety, precluding arbitration of antitrust claims, the Court of Appeals concluded that neither this Court's decision in Scherk nor the Convention required abandonment of that doctrine in the face of an international transaction. 723 F. 2d, at 164-168. Accordingly, it reversed the judgment of the District Court insofar as it had ordered submission of "Soler's antitrust claims" to arbitration. 10 Affirming the remainder of the judgment," the court directed the District Court to consider in the first instance how the parallel judicial and arbitral proceedings should go forward.12

minimum-sales volumes and Mitsubishi's alleged attempt to coerce Soler into accepting replacement by a Mitsubishi subsidiary. It agreed with the District Court's conclusion, in which Mitsubishi acquiesced, that the arbitration clause did not reach the first issue; it found the second, arising from Soler's payment problems, to restate claims already found to be covered. 723 F. 2d, at 161.

Finally, the Court of Appeals found the antitrust claims under Puerto Rico law entirely to reiterate claims elsewhere stated; accordingly, it held them arbitrable to the same extent as their counterparts. Ibid.

10 Soler suggests that the court thereby declared antitrust claims arising under Puerto Rico law nonarbitrable as well. We read the Court of Appeals' opinion to have held only the federal antitrust claims nonarbitrable. See id., at 157 ("principal issue on this appeal is whether arbitration of federal antitrust claims may be compelled under the Federal Arbitration Act"); id., at 161 ("major question in this appeal is whether the antitrust issues raised by Soler's third counterclaim [grounded on Sherman Act] are subject to arbitration"). In any event, any contention that the local antitrust claims are nonarbitrable would be foreclosed by this Court's decision in Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S., at 10, where we held that the Federal Arbitration Act "withdrew the power of the states to require a judicial forum for the resolution of claims which the contracting parties agreed to resolve by arbitration."

"In this Court, Soler suggests for the first time that Congress intended that claims under the federal Automobile Dealers' Day in Court Act be nonarbitrable. Brief for Respondent and Cross-Petitioner 21, n. 12. Because Soler did not raise this question in the Court of Appeals or present it in its cross-petition, we do not address it here.

12 Following entry of the District Court's judgment, both it and the Court of Appeals denied motions by Soler for a stay pending appeal. The parties

1

We granted certiorari primarily to consider whether an American court should enforce an agreement to resolve antitrust claims by arbitration when that agreement arises from an international transaction. 469 U. S. 916 (1984).

II

At the outset, we address the contention raised in Soler's cross-petition that the arbitration clause at issue may not be read to encompass the statutory counterclaims stated in its answer to the complaint. In making this argument, Soler does not question the Court of Appeals' application of ¶ VI of the Sales Agreement to the disputes involved here as a matter of standard contract interpretation. Instead, it argues

13

accordingly commenced preparation for the arbitration in Japan. Upon remand from the Court of Appeals, however, Soler withdrew the antitrust claims from the arbitration tribunal and sought a stay of arbitration pending the completion of the judicial proceedings on the ground that the antitrust claims permeated the claims that remained before that tribunal. The District Court denied the motion, instead staying its own proceedings pending the arbitration in Japan. The arbitration recommenced, but apparently came to a halt once again in September 1984 upon the filing by Soler of a petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U. S. C. § 1101 et seq.

13 We therefore have no reason to review the Court of Appeals' construction of the scope of the arbitration clause in the light of the allegations of Soler's counterclaims. See n. 9, supra; Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S., at 15, n. 7.

Soler does suggest that, because the title of the clause referred only to "certain matters," App. 52, and the clause itself specifically referred only to "Articles I-B through V," ibid., it should be read narrowly to exclude the statutory claims. Soler ignores the inclusion within those "certain matters" of "[a]ll disputes, controversies or differences which may arise between [Mitsubishi] and [Soler] out of or in relation to [the specified provisions] or for the breach thereof." Contrary to Soler's suggestion, the exclusion of some areas of possible dispute from the scope of an arbitration clause does not serve to restrict the reach of an otherwise broad clause in the areas in which it was intended to operate. Thus, insofar as the allegations underlying the statutory claims touch matters covered by the enumerated articles, the Court of Appeals properly resolved any doubts in favor of arbitrability. See 723 F. 2d, at 159.

that as a matter of law a court may not construe an arbitration agreement to encompass claims arising out of statutes designed to protect a class to which the party resisting arbitration belongs "unless [that party] has expressly agreed" to arbitrate those claims, see Pet. for Cert. in No. 83-1733, pp. 8, i, by which Soler presumably means that the arbitration clause must specifically mention the statute giving rise to the claims that a party to the clause seeks to arbitrate. See 723 F. 2d, at 159. Soler reasons that, because it falls within the class for whose benefit the federal and local antitrust laws and dealers' Acts were passed, but the arbitration clause at issue does not mention these statutes or statutes in general, the clause cannot be read to contemplate arbitration of these statutory claims.

We do not agree, for we find no warrant in the Arbitration Act for implying in every contract within its ken a presumption against arbitration of statutory claims. The Act's centerpiece provision makes a written agreement to arbitrate "in any maritime transaction or a contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce. . . valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract." 9 U. S. C. §2. The "liberal federal policy favoring arbitration agreements,' Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Construction Corp., 460 U. S. 1, 24 (1983), manifested by this provision and the Act as a whole, is at bottom a policy guaranteeing the enforcement of private contractual arrangements: the Act simply "creates a body of federal substantive law establishing and regulating the duty to honor an agreement to arbitrate." Id., at 25, n. 32. As this Court recently observed, "[t]he preeminent concern of Congress in passing the Act was to enforce private agreements into which parties had entered,"

14

"The Court previously has explained that the Act was designed to overcome an anachronistic judicial hostility to agreements to arbitrate, which American courts had borrowed from English common law. See Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. v. Byrd, 470 U. S. 213, 219–221, and n. 6 (1985); Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., 417 U. S. 506, 510, and n. 4 (1974).