In a French-language decision dated 18 June 2012 in Case 4A_488/2011, the Swiss Supreme Court considered as “convincing” the view that the Court of Arbitration for Sport has jurisdiction to hear an appeal filed after expiry of the time limit. Since the time limit to appeal turned out to be met in this case, the Supreme Court unfortunately did not decisively settle this issue but provided some interesting observations. Although in the final analysis it was held that the time limit was met, the Supreme Court’s observations with regard to the admissibility of an appeal after expiry of the time limit are worthwhile to report. The Supreme Court also reiterated that the principle of reverse onus i [...]

With its decision of 27 March 2012, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court held unlawful a disciplinary sanction by which FIFA threatened the football player Matuzalem with a lifetime ban in case he failed to pay a damage claim of his former club and employer.

By an earlier decision of the CAS, Francelino da Silva Matuzalem, together with the football club Real Saragossa SAD, were ordered to pay an amount of over EUR 11 million plus interest as damage after Matuzalem had left his former football club Shakhtar Donetsk to join Real Saragossa without a reason and without giving notice. As both Matuzalem and Real Saragossa did not pay the damage, FIFA set a final deadline for payment and, failing payme [...]

At its session of 15 November 2011, the International Council of Arbitration for Sports (ICAS) amended Article 14 of the Statutes of the bodies working for the settlement of Sport-related Disputes (Article S14) and abandoned the old regime which provided that with regard to the list of CAS arbitrators, the ICAS had to respect a specific distribution, namely 1/5th of the arbitrators selected from among the persons proposed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), chosen from within its membership or from outside; 1/5th of the arbitrators selected from among the persons proposed by the International Federations for the Summer and Winter Olympics (IFs), chosen from within their membership [...]

In a decision dated 20 September 2011, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court held that the arbitration clause contained in a License Agreement for boxing equipment, interpreted by the CAS arbitral tribunal as referring to any dispute related to the said agreement, could equally cover disputes arising out of other related contracts, such as the contract for the sale of the same boxing equipment (4A_103/2011).
Facts
In 2005, a boxing association entered into a Licencing Agreement with a manufacturer of sports goods according to which the manufacturer was entitled to manufacture and sell boxing equipment approved by the association against the payment of royalties. The contract contained the followin [...]

The High Court of the Canton of Zurich had to examine in a recent case whether the allegedly false testimony of a witness in arbitration proceedings was punishable under the Article 307 of the Swiss Criminal Code as perjury.

Up to now, it was disputed by scholars whether the requirements for witness testimony in state court proceedings also applied in arbitration.

The Court referred to the Swiss Federal Supreme Court’s case law according to which the validity of a witness testimony is governed by the applicable procedural laws. In the absence of specific provisions, it is not required that the transcripts/minutes be read to the witness after his testimony and that the witness signs the trans [...]

In a decision dated 14 June 2011 and published on 7 July 2011, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court dismissed an appeal to set aside an arbitral award holding that the right to the appointment of an expert by the tribunal is not violated where the respective request was not made in a timely manner and in proper form (4A_617/2010).

Decision

X (a Turkish company) and Y (a Polish company) were in dispute over the question of which party was responsible for the delays in the execution of the contractual work. The dispute was brought before an ICC tribunal seated in Zurich. With respect to the disputed question, each party submitted to the arbitral tribunal a technical expert report.

In an award of 30 [...]