The Court granted the defendant's motion to compel arbitration. Maglana and the other plaintiffs claimed that the defendant had held for months, and continued to hold, "thousands of souls captive aboard its fleet" without wages or the ability to return home, without a justifiable reason – in fact, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Court found that it should compel arbitration as the four jurisdictional requirements for compelling arbitration under the New York Convention were met: there was an agreement in writing within the meaning of the Convention, which provided for arbitration in the territory of a Convention signatory and arose out of a legal relationship, whether contractual or not, which was considered commercial; and a party to the agreement was not an American citizen, or the commercial relationship had some reasonable relation with one or more foreign states. The Court also found that the arbitration provisions were not rendered invalid because of the defendant's alleged contractual nonperformance (unclean hands).