During the 2024 Olympic Games, as the public watched world-class athletes perform, international arbitration came into the spotlight. The decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (“CAS”) to “strip” the US gymnast, Jordan Chiles, of her Olympic bronze medal (“CAS Decision”) caused a media storm and called into question the independence and impartiality of…
Sir David Williams KC is an Associate Member of Bankside Chambers, Auckland, New Zealand. Sir David is a former Justice of the High Court of New Zealand, the High Court of the Cook Islands, and the Court of the Dubai International Financial Centre. Since 2005, Sir David has been consistently praised as “one of the…
On 21 December 2023 the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) handed down its decision in Case C-124/21 P, International Skating Union v. European Commission. The CJEU agreed with the 16 December 2020 judgment of the General Court of the EU (“GCEU”), and with the European Commission in CASE AT. 40208 International Skating…
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…
On 23 November 2023, Young Arbitrators Sweden (YAS) held its fifteenth annual Arbitration Day (Sw. skiljeförfarandedagen) at the historic Central Post Office Building (Sw. Posthuset), the home of the Stockholm International Hearing Centre (SIHC). This year, YAS celebrates a milestone of 20 years since its founding and the larger venue reflects the ongoing success of…
On December 30, 2022, the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China (“SPC”) released its 36th batch of six guiding cases, all of which relate to the judicial review of arbitration awards. Our previous article focused on the first three guiding cases (Guiding Cases 196, 197, and 198) which addressed several critical issues…
On the third day of Australian Arbitration Week, Clifford Chance’s Perth office hosted a panel discussion on “Australian sports tribunals and lessons learnt from international sports arbitration”. The session was moderated by Jamie Calvy (Senior Associate, Clifford Chance) with a panel comprising: Stephen Meade (General Counsel, Australian Football League); John Boultbee AM (Inaugural CEO, National…
Few people can pride themselves with a career as rich and impactful as that of the Honorable L. Yves Fortier, PC CC, OQ, KC, Ad. E., LLD and no summary will do it justice. Counsel, negotiator, arbitrator, diplomat, thought leader – these are just some of the hats Mr. Fortier has worn over the years….
The arbitration world’s most famous ice skater, Claudia Pechstein, has won a stage victory in her long-lasting and widely discussed struggle against the international sports arbitration system. On June 3, the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG), Beschluss vom 3.6.2022, 1 BvR 2103/16) sided with Pechstein in her constitutional complaint against a ruling of the…
Paris Arbitration Week 2022 demonstrated the arbitration community’s increasing interest in sports-related disputes, with three events dealing with sports arbitration. This post is a non-exhaustive account of those events. Panelists covered different topics, ranging from the venues of sports arbitration to diversity in arbitration panels, sports and competition law, the impact of Covid-19 and economic…
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…
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…
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…
Ask any person on the street, and one would often find that sports has, in one way or another, played a role in or had an impact on their life. Commercially, the global sports industry has been one of the fastest growing industries. Like other growing industries where disputes are expected, the legal framework surrounding…
The findings of the recent decision Ali Riza et al. v. Turkey (“Riza“) of the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR“) dated 28 January 2020, when read in conjunction with the ECtHR’s previous decision Mutu and Pechstein v. Switzerland (“Mutu-Pechstein“) dated 2 October 2018 (which concluded the “Pechstein Saga”), could potentially have an impact on…
The recent public hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (‘CAS’) involving the World Anti-Doping Agency (‘WADA’) on one side, and the Chinese swimmer Sun Yang and the Federation Internationale de Natation (‘FINA’) on the other, has been plagued with controversies. In the anticipation of the award (expected in early 2020), this seems to…
Introduction There have been three main long-standing controversies concerning arbitration in Egypt. First, interest rates and whether they are truly part of Egyptian substantive public policy.1)Ismail Selim, ‘Egyptian Public Policy as a Ground for Annulment and Refusal of Enforcement of Arbitral Awards’ (2016) 3 BCDR International Arbitration Review, Issue 1, pp. 65–79. Second, whether the…
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…
Consent has long been accepted as the cornerstone of arbitration, until recently. The evolution and expansion of arbitration brought about diverging opinions on the consensual character of arbitration. For example, Stavros Brekoulakis suggested that “[w]hile … a functional concept of consent may enhance the effectiveness of arbitration clauses in complex transactions, it is very difficult…
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,…
In a recent case, the Swiss Federal Tribunal (“SFT”) has once again been called to consider the question of independence of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (“CAS”) vis-à-vis its funders and users. This note introduces the issue of funding and independence of CAS in the context of the SFT’s prior case law and discusses…
2016 was a great year for Brazil, especially because it hosted the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, which has brought many good things: thousands of sports enthusiasts came to Rio de Janeiro to see high profile athletes; others just came for a good caipirinha on the Copacabana Beach; and, of course, many athletes from different countries…
No other sport event has attracted as much attention recently as the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio (Rio 2016). Due to the international scale, high stakes involved, close emotional attachments as well as the increased publicity, Rio 2016 came under close scrutiny from all kinds of stakeholders. Just like in old times (remember boycotts of…
