On 19 March 2024, as part of the 8th edition of Paris Arbitration Week, the Comité Français de l’Arbitrage (CFA) organized a much-awaited and well-attended event on Arbitration, Sports Law and the Olympics, only a few months before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games Paris 2024. Attendees were welcomed by Janice Feigher (Secretary General…
The review mechanism of sports arbitration in Switzerland is under scrutiny. After previous criticism from a human rights perspective, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”), in its recent International Skating Union (“ISU”) decision, found that the standard of review applied by the Swiss Federal Court (“SFC”) to mandatory arbitration awards by the…
Several football teams were adversely affected by the 2008 global financial crisis, and some of them were even liquidated. Over time, some of these clubs re-emerged, including as a result of mergers, acquisitions, the sale and purchase of production units during bankruptcy proceedings, etc. Others, however, were resurrected due to the desire of the supporters and/or…
Hidden behind the glamour and grandeur of major sporting events such as the Olympics is the way the sport comes to terms with various aspects of the law. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), or the Tribunal Arbitral Du Sport (TAS), based in Lausanne, is at the apex of a now complex pyramid of…
During the Paris Arbitration Week, Savoie Laporte hosted a virtual panel discussion entitled “International Organizations as Users and Providers of International Arbitration”. The webinar was moderated by Pierre-Olivier Laporte (Co-founder of the international law boutique Savoie Laporte) and featured four speakers from intergovernmental organizations (IOs). OECD and WADA as Users of International Arbitration Lucie…
On 8 June 2021, the Paris Court of appeal (CoA) rendered an interesting decision dealing with the issue of so-called “double hatting” in sports arbitration. The issue of double hatting can no longer arise with respect to proceedings before the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), as Article S18(3) of the Code of Sports-related…
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (“CAS”) has once again in a recent case demoted the burden of proof for an athlete seeking to show they did not commit an Anti-Doping Rule Violation (“ADRV”). The World Anti-Doping Code (“WADC”) provides that an athlete who is found to have committed an ADRV involving a prohibited substance…
Among its over 50 decisions on appeals against arbitral awards rendered in 2020, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court (“Supreme Court”) in two decisions yet again addressed a delicate issue on the interaction of human rights and arbitration: can private parties challenge arbitral awards on the basis that the arbitral tribunal violated their human rights under…
In accordance with S20.C of the Code of Sports-Related Arbitration (the Code), the Appeals Arbitration Division (AAD) of the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) has jurisdiction “to resolve disputes concerning the decisions of federations, associations or other sports-related bodies insofar as the statutes or regulations of the said sports-related bodies or a specific agreement…
Regardless of whether you are a sports enthusiast, the Swiss Federal Tribunal’s recent revision of the CAS award in WADA v. Sun Yang is unlikely to have escaped your attention. In its judgment of 22 December 2020 (4A_318/2020), the Swiss Federal Tribunal referred the Chinese swimmer’s case back to CAS, overturning an eight-year ban. A…
It is no secret that each sport has its rules of the game with appropriate sanctions for violating them. However, it may be new for someone that sports also have its own dispute resolution system. Almost every sports organization has its own internal dispute settlement bodies, whose decisions may be appealed to Court of Arbitration…
The applicability of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”) to arbitral proceedings is a complex issue. The recent decision of the European Court for Human Rights (“ECtHR”) in the so-called Mutu/Pechstein cases brings some clarification in this regard, but also raises some new questions1)ECtHR, Mutu and Pechstein v. Switzerland, Decision of 2 October 2018,…
The authors write this contribution strictly in their own name. Most arbitration laws require parties to identify in their arbitration agreement the “defined legal relationship” for which they wish to submit disputes to arbitration. Nonetheless, this requirement has given rise to little case law in practice. In a judgment of 29 August 2018 (“Judgment”), however,…
