ITALY Law and Practice Contributed by: Maurizio Marullo, Giorgio Vagnoni, Francesco Amoresano and Fausto Consolo, LAWP Studio legale e tributario
For administrative disputes (eg, enrolment, affiliation and registration to competitions), the parties need to pursue remedies before sports justice courts (each federation ensures at least two levels of judgment and, in specific cases, it is possible to challenge said decisions to the CONI Collegio di Garanzia dello Sport; see also 1.4 Disciplinary Proceedings ), before they chal - lenge sports justice decisions before the Lazio Regional Administrative Court (Article 135.1.g of the Italian Code of Administrative Proceedings). For disputes concerning labour and/or eco - nomic relationships between sports individuals and entities, the parties, in general, may apply to ordinary courts or refer the dispute resolution to arbitration. However, note that most collec - tive agreements provide an exclusive arbitration venue for the resolution of said disputes (see 6.2 ADR, including Arbitration ). For criminal offences, two separate disputes – one before the ordinary court and one before the sport justice bodies – proceed in parallel, and said duplication of disputes can sometimes lead to conflicting decisions (see 1.1 Anti-Doping ). 6.2 ADR (Including Arbitration) Arbitration courts can be used in labour and/or economic disputes in accordance with Article 806 of the Italian Code of Civil Proceedings and Article 4.3 of the CONI Sports Justice Code. Arbitration for labour and/or economic matters is commonplace in Italian professional sports, as collective agreements stipulated by the play - ers’, coaches’ and sports directors’ unions with federations and leagues, as well as professional contracts, all include arbitration clauses as an exclusive remedy.
Competent panels generally issue arbitration awards that are binding between the parties. Arbitration awards can only be challenged for invalidity under the Code of Civil Proceedings, subject to certain specific grounds and limita - tions. 6.3 Challenging Sports Governing Bodies Enforcement of Sports Sanctions Federations have the power to impose sanc - tions on affiliates and members, since accepting sports law and justice – including sanctions – is an affiliation/membership requirement. Sports justice provides a wide range of sanctions, the extent of which depends on their recipients (eg, athletes or clubs), and the type and seriousness of the violation. Examples of sanctions on clubs are warnings, fines, points deductions, transfer bans, relega - tion and exclusion from competition. Examples of sanctions on individuals are warnings, fines, temporary disqualification/ineligibility, bans from federation body activities and lifetime bans. Also, mitigating and/or aggravating circumstanc - es, unlawful association and recidivist conduct may be taken into account whenever they are provided by Sports Justice Regulations. Sports justice decisions are binding on the par - ties and failure to observe them could lead to additional and more severe sanctions. To verify compliance with federation rules, fed - erations can be supported by internal super - visory bodies. For example, the FIGC and FIP are respectively supported by CoViSoC and ComTec, committees with ongoing monitoring, supervisory and control functions over profes -
140 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook