It took only days for the de facto immunity of the Court of
Arbitration for Sport (CAS) awards from State court interference to collapse
like a house of cards on the grounds
of the public policy exception mandated under Article V(2)(b) of the New York Convention on the Recognition and
Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards . On 15 January 2015, the
Munich Court of Appeals signalled an unprecedented turn in the
longstanding legal dispute between the German speed skater, Claudia Pechstein,
and the International Skating Union (ISU). It refused to recognise a CAS
arbitral award, confirming the validity of a doping ban, on the grounds that it
violated a core principle of German cartel law which forms part of the German public
policy. A few weeks before, namely on 30 December 2014, the Court of Appeal of Bremen held a CAS award, which ordered the German Club, SV Wilhelmshaven, to
pay ‘training compensation’, unenforceable for non-compliance with mandatory
European Union law and, thereby, for violation of German ordre public. More...
The Pechstein decision of the
Oberlandesgericht of Munich is “ground-breaking”, “earth-shaking”, “revolutionary”,
name it. It was the outmost duty of a “German-reading” sports lawyer to
translate it as fast as possible in order to make it available for the sports
law community at large (Disclaimer: This is not an official translation and I
am no certified legal translator). Below you will find the rough translation of
the ruling (the full German text is available here), it is omitting solely the parts,
which are of no direct interest to international sports law.
The future
of CAS is in the balance and this ruling should trigger some serious
rethinking of the institutional set-up that underpins it. As you will see, the
ruling is not destructive, the Court is rather favourable to the function of
CAS in the sporting context, but it requires a fundamental institutional
reshuffling. It also offers a fruitful legal strategy to challenge CAS awards
that could be used in front of any national court of the EU as it is based on reasoning
analogically applicable to article 102 TFEU (on abuse of a dominant position),
which is valid across the EU’s territory.
Enjoy the read!
Antoine
PS: The translation can also be downloaded at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2561297
More...
Introduction[1]
The Court of Arbitration for Sport
(CAS) registers approximately 300 cases every year. Recently, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court – which is the sole
judicial authority to review arbitral awards rendered in Switzerland – reminded
in the Matuzalém Case (Case 4A_558/2011) that CAS awards may be enforced in other States that are parties to
the New York
Convention on the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards.More...