Arbitration Agreement in Legal Matters Related to International Sport

Sports arbitration, as any other arbitration, is based on the arbitration agreement. Arbitration agreement, similarity to any other agreements, to be valid, should fulfil the conditions of formal and material validity. Peculiarities of arbitration agreement are found in the special way of consent given to arbitration and the qualification of that consent will be crucial for the validity of arbitration agreement. Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), often called as the Supreme Court for Sports is an institution for the dispute resolution in sports whose jurisdiction is based upon that kind of specific arbitration agreement. Even though the validity of arbitration agreement is a precondition for commencement of arbitration procedures, also before CAS, it’s validity could be questioned even later, in appeal before Swiss Federal Tribunal or when deciding on the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards applying the Newyork Convention 1958. Modern age reviewed the foundations of sports arbitration as a system on the global scale. The prominent case of Claudia Pechstein internationally began before CAS but had its sequence and culmination before German Courts. Sports Community intensely expected the decision of the Bundesgerichsthof (BHG) in May 2016, as it expects the decision of the European Court for Human Rights where the case is still pending. This article analyses the regulation in force as well as the jurisprudence regarding arbitration agreement, ending with the critical reviews of the decisions in the Pechstein case