Category: Sports Arbitration

Sports Arbitration: Update on the Wilhelmshaven Case

SV WilhelmshavenIn February 2015, I wrote about the Wilhelmshaven case: The Bremen Court of Appeals (Oberlandesgericht) had found in favour of SV Wilhelmshaven, a northern German amateur football club, in its dispute with FIFA and the German Football Association, DFB. I looked at the case primarily from an arbitration perspective – I viewed it as a variation of the theme in the Pechstein case: Yet another matter where the state courts criticize the system of, or rather, the design of sports arbitration. In his blog, Jan F. Orth has published a preview of a forthcoming case* note that defends sports arbitration as we know it, and predicts that the Bremen judgment will not stand the scrutiny of the Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof). Read More

Sports Arbitration – Bremen Court of Appeals Grants Access to Courts, Finds FIFA Compensation Rules Illegal

The Pechstein decision of the Munich Court of Appeals (Oberlandesgericht) of January 15, 2015 has made headlines. The Munich court refused to recognize an arbitral award of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), since it held the underlying arbitration agreement between Claudia Pechstein, the speed skater, and her sport’s governing body to be invalid. Just two weeks earlier, another German Court of Appeals also had held a CAS award to be unenforceable. The Bremen Court of Appeals on December 30, 2014 found in favour of SV Wilhelmshaven, a northern German amateur football club, in its dispute with FIFA and the German Football Association, DFB. Read More

Sports Arbitration: Pechstein/CAS Update – English Translation of Munich Judgment

Last month, the judgment of the Munich Court of Appeals (Oberlandesgericht) that held the arbitral award of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Claudia Pechstein’s doping case to be unenforceable has attracted a lot of attention internationally. It has been called  “ground-breaking”, “earth-shaking” and “revolutionary”. Antoine Duval of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut has done a great job and produced an English translation of the judgment, available at SSRN. I am sure that the translation is of great interest to large parts of the international arbitration community. I also hope that it helps to dispel some misconceptions about the judgment’s percieved hostility to sports arbitration. Here is Antoine’s take on the judgment: Read More

Getting Ready For the World Cup: Arbitration and Football, Heidelberg, June 6, 2104

Jogi Löw has named his squad for the World Cup in Brazil. And while the German players will be sweating in their training camp, University of Heidelberg, the German Institution of Arbitration (DIS) and DAV’s Sports Law Section are running a joint training camp of their own for lawyers to get them ready for the World Cup.

A one day conference on June 6, 2014, looks at the World Cup from various legal angles, primarily – but not exclusively – from an arbitration perspective. One session sounds particularly exiting: It brings together counsel for both parties in the Pechstein case, in which the District Court (Landgericht) München has recently issued a controversial judgment on the role of arbitration in sport, when it held an arbitration clause used by a sports in an athlete’s agreement federations to be invalid.