PORTUGAL Law and Practice Contributed by: Miguel Santos Almeida, Maria Novo Baptista and João Saúde, Sérvulo & Associados
can only be challenged before the sports federation bodies; those rules governing aspects of the sport beyond its practice and that have a framing function in relation to public interests that are to be maintained and assured cannot be considered technical or dis - ciplinary. The decisions rendered by sports governing bodies within the scope of their private law competence can be challenged before the civil state courts. 6.2 ADR Mechanisms As mentioned previously, the TAD was created by Law No 74/2013 and became effective from 1 October 2015. Its jurisdiction extends only to disputes arising after 1 October 2015, unless the parties specifically agree otherwise, and it operates in two spheres: com - pulsory arbitration and voluntary arbitration. Within the scope of compulsory arbitration, the TAD has exclusive jurisdiction to resolve disputes arising from acts and omissions of sports federations, pro - fessional leagues and other sports entities, within the scope of the exercise of its corresponding powers of regulation, organisation, direction and discipline. In the context of voluntary arbitration, all disputes directly or indirectly related to the practice of sports, which according to the general Law on Voluntary Arbitration are arbitrable, may also be submitted to arbitration before the TAD. The arbitrability criteria set out in the Law on Voluntary Arbitration consider the economic nature of the dispute. Disputes arising from sports employment contracts concluded between athletes or coaches and agents or sports bodies may be subject to voluntary arbitra - tion. Conversely, issues arising from the application of technical and disciplinary rules directly concerning the conduct of a sports competition itself may not be submitted to arbitration before the TAD. The voluntary arbitration agreement must be made in writing. It can be concluded in the form of an arbitra - tion clause, an arbitral compromise or by means of a statutory clause of the relevant sports governing body.
Decisions of the TAD rendered in compulsory arbi - tration proceedings may be appealed to the relevant central administrative court. On the other hand, the decisions rendered by the TAD in voluntary arbitra - tion proceedings are not appealable, except before the Constitutional Court. Under certain circumstances (eg, where the content of the decision offends the prin - ciples of the Portuguese State regarding international public order), parties may request the annulment of an arbitral decision before the common courts. According to Law No 74/2013, state courts are not competent to render interim measures in sports arbi - tration cases. However, as interim measures must be rendered within five days, the law provides that, if the arbitral panel has not yet been constituted and thus a timely decision is not possible, the President of the Southern Central Administrative Court or the President of the Lisbon Court of Appeal is competent to render the interim measures requested before the TAD. Within the scope of voluntary arbitration, the parties are also given the option of requesting that interim measures be rendered by an emergency arbitrator in cases of special urgency. The emergency arbitrator will be appointed from among the TAD’s arbitrators by the President of the TAD within two days of the submission of the request. 6.3 Sanctions, Remedies and Challenges An arbitration award rendered by the TAD has the same enforceability as a decision rendered by the state courts. Therefore, the arbitration award may be enforced before state courts. The party seeking enforcement must provide the original award or a cer - tified copy thereof and, if it is not in Portuguese, a certified translation into that language. The enforcement of an arbitral award may be chal - lenged on any of the grounds for annulment of a deci - sion, such as that: • the proceedings violated the principle of adver - sarial proceedings or the principle of equality of the parties, with a decisive influence on the outcome of the dispute;
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