60
Opinion of the Court
N. E. 2d, at 796. In other words, the provision might include only New York's substantive rights and obligations, and not the State's allocation of power between alternative tribunals.3 Respondents' argument is persuasive only if "New York law" means "New York decisional law, including that State's allocation of power between courts and arbitrators, notwithstanding otherwise-applicable federal law." But, as we have demonstrated, the provision need not be read so broadly. It is not, in itself, an unequivocal exclusion of punitive damages claims.4
The arbitration provision (the second sentence of paragraph 13) does not improve respondents' argument. On the contrary, when read separately this clause strongly implies that an arbitral award of punitive damages is appropriate. It explicitly authorizes arbitration in accordance with NASD rules; 5 the panel of arbitrators in fact proceeded under that
3 In a related point, respondents argue that there is no meaningful distinction between "substance" and "remedy," that is, between an entitlement to prevail on the law and an entitlement to a specific form of damages. See Brief for Respondents 25-27. We do not rely on such a distinction here, nor do we pass upon its persuasiveness.
4 The dissent makes much of the similarity between this choice-of-law clause and the one in Volt Information Sciences, Inc. v. Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior Univ., 489 U. S. 468 (1989), which we took to incorporate a California statute allowing a court to stay arbitration pending resolution of related litigation. In Volt, however, we did not interpret the contract de novo. Instead, we deferred to the California court's construction of its own State's law. Id., at 474 ("[T]he interpretation of private contracts is ordinarily a question of state law, which this Court does not sit to review"). In the present case, by contrast, we review a federal court's interpretation of this contract, and our interpretation accords with that of the only decisionmaker arguably entitled to deference—the arbitrator. See n. 1, supra.
5 The contract also authorizes (at petitioners' election) that the arbitration be governed by the rules of the New York Stock Exchange or the American Stock Exchange, instead of those of the NASD. App. to Pet. for Cert. 44. Neither set of alternative rules purports to limit an arbitrator's discretion to award punitive damages. Moreover, even if there were any doubt as to the ability of an arbitrator to award punitive damages under
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