Swiss Arbitration Decisions

The case involved a sports arbitration in Lausanne, in which two Argentinean agents had been entrusted with negotiating the transfer of a player to the Spanish club Real Madrid. The transfer was not completed due to a negative medical report. The agents filed a claim with FIFA for fees, which was rejected. On February 29, 2008, the Court of Arbitration for Sports (“CAS”) upheld the dismissal of the claim. The CAS arbitral tribunal was chaired by Prof. Massimo Coccia with Mr. D.

The case involves a 2006 contract between an English company and a Canadian resident, acting as trustee for a trust that owned the shares of a company, sold the shares to the buyer. Simultaneously, an employment contract was entered into between the company owned by the trust, which was based in the United Arab Emirates and an Italian resident with a view to his future employment as a managing director.

The investor argued that per se  the 1954 Convention would not prevent a state – as opposed to a private claimant or even a state entity – from being ordered to provide security for costs. Judge Kiss disagreed in a fairly detailed and convincing decision.

These two decisions, 4A_244/2019 and 4A_246/2019, concern the final awards in two arbitrations under the UNCITRAL Rules before the same PCA Arbitral Tribunal (Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler as Chair, with Brigitte Stern and Daniel Price as co-arbitrators), with its seat in Geneva.

The case involved a dispute between the world football governing body, FIFA, and a Swiss-based ticket-reselling company (A.________) but, interestingly, this is not a CAS award. 

The case involved an international-level middle-distance runner (the Athlete) whose antidoping controls showed the highly likely use of a prohibited substance or method. Following a provisional suspension in April 2016, the Athlete was suspended for four years. The decision with grounds was part of the minutes of the meeting of the Federation’s Disciplinary Commission in June 2016.