CAS Decision sanctioning a ban by FIFA of a football player violates public policy
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 [...]
Sports Arbitration and Due Process: The Sequel
In a post dated March 2, 2011, I reported about a Swiss Supreme Court decision of February 20, 2009 where the Supreme Court had confirmed a CAS award which deemed an appeal withdrawn after the appellant had failed to pay the advance on costs.
I indicated that I did not know what had happened to the dispute afterwards.
As it turns out, about a month after this post, the saga continued with the Supreme Court rendering another decision related to this matter.
As a reminder, the dispute concerned the payment of an indemnity by a football coach to its former club following a transfer. The identity of the parties being revealed in this new decision, I will refer to the parties by their names. Th [...]
Sports Arbitration and Due Process
Sports arbitration is becoming an increasingly important field. In Switzerland, where the Court for Arbitration for Sports is located, the Swiss Supreme Court is seeing lately nearly half of its cases coming from the CAS.
Sports arbitration, however, gives rise to a specific concern with respect to the issue of consent. Often, athletes find themselves before arbitral tribunals whose jurisdiction was not directly chosen by them, but to which they are attracted for the sole reason that they signed an agreement with a federation which submits its disputes to arbitration. Courts, and in particular the Swiss Supreme Court, have seldom held arbitration agreements by reference in the sport con [...]
Federal Tribunal Rejects Pechstein Petition
In a decision dated 10 February 2010 (4A_612/2009), the Swiss Federal Tribunal rejected a petition to set aside a November 2009 CAS Award against German speed-skater Claudia Pechstein. The Federal Tribunal took some unusual procedural steps – including foregoing the usual exchange of written pleadings – to speed up the proceedings and to decide the case before the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.
Blood samples taken from Claudia Pechstein at the International Skating Union (ISU) World Speedskating Championships in Hamar, Norway, in February 2009, showed elevated reticulocytes values. On 1 July 2009, the ISU Disciplinary Commission declared Claudia Pechstein responsible for an an [...]
