Emmert Industrial Artisan Associates

I. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW

An Oregon corporation, Emmert is an engineering and transportation company that specializes in transporting objects weighing in excess of 100,000 pounds. Artisan is a Michigan EMMERT INDUSTRIAL v. ARTISAN ASSOCIATES 9745 corporation and transportation broker engaged primarily in coordinating complex “heavy haul” projects on behalf of its clients, a business in which Artisan routinely contracts with carriers such as Emmert.1 In May 1996 Artisan, under a bro- ker’s contract with General Motors (“GM”), solicited bids for the “Press Project,” a complex undertaking that involved the transportation and delivery of six industrial metal-stamping presses from Japan to GM plants in Georgia, Michigan, and Missouri. Emmert submitted the winning bid for transporting the major components of six presses, subsequently receiving a 46-word notification letter from Artisan stating that Emmert would serve as “the primary carrier” on the Press Project for transportation of “all components that weigh more than 100,000 pounds.” Upon receipt of this letter, which also instructed Emmert to “proceed with the necessary planning,” Emmert took a number of…