Starr International Co. v. American International Group, Inc.

FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW, AND FINAL JUDGMENT

JED S. RAKOFF, District Judge.

“Put it in writing” is the law’s way of saying “get serious.” In many circumstances, oral commitments are just too slippery to be enforced, a fact of human nature that the English Parliament recognized as early as 1677 when, declaring that certain contracts were unenforceable if not reduced to writing, it enacted what was tellingly called “An Act for the Prevention of Frauds and Perjuries,” 29 Car. 2, ch. 3, now known to every lawyer as the Statute of Frauds. Here, in the central claim of this case,…