Except as otherwise provided in this section, any provision in a contract entered into in North Carolina that requires the prosecution of any action or the arbitration of any dispute that arises from the contract to be instituted or heard in another state is against public policy and is void and unenforceable. This prohibition shall not apply to non-consumer loan transactions or to any action or arbitration of a dispute that is commenced in another state pursuant to a forum selection provision with the consent of all parties to the contract at the time that the dispute arises.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 22B-3
Contracts with forum selection provisions
Applied in 33 court decisions — leading case 168 N.C. App. 182 - Szymczyk v. Signs Now Corp. (2005)
Most recently applied in K. Barber v. Bradford Aquatic (December 2023)
1993, c. 436, s. 2; 1995, c. 100, s. 1.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: North Carolina General Assembly. Reproduced from public-domain North Carolina statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.