Swiss Arbitration Decisions

The case involved a dispute concerning a consultancy agreement by which a company undertook to provide services to ensure that a football player would remain with the club for which he was playing. The arbitration clause in the consultancy agreement provided for jurisdiction of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), before a panel of three arbitrators.

At issue was an award issued by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in the matter of a Luxembourg racing cyclist who entered into a self-employment agreement in 2010 with a company managing a cycling team. Furthermore, an agreement on image rights gave the team the right to exploit the cyclist’s image against compensation. When he was found positive in a doping control during the 2012 Tour de France, the cyclist left the competition whilst continuing to train with the team.

The opinion is very interesting since it deals, among other issues, with the distinction between domestic and international arbitration and the exact conditions for opting out of the review system of the Swiss Code of Civil Procedure (CPC) for the more restrictive appeal conditions foreseen in Article 190 (2) of the Swiss Private International Law Act (PILA).