English Arbiters to suffer???

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Nick Thomas
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Re: English Arbiters to suffer???

Post by Nick Thomas » Tue Jun 12, 2012 10:52 pm

Matthew Turner wrote:Martin,
I would put the chance of an ECF official going on a Dunblaine style masscare at a chess event at tens of millions to one. The chance of the Turkish providing England with uninhabitable accommodation might be one in ten. In these circumstances England might withdraw but then they would still have to pay for changed flights. This doesn't mean that the ECF were wrong to launch the legal action that they did, but I think the idea that it is financially risk free is just not correct. What is the level of the financial risk - I don't know, but for an organisation of the ECF's size I would have thought it could well be 'significant'.
I think you have a good point. I think it is very possible that a spiteful FIDE could, if it wished to, begin legal action against the ECF on a related or unrelated issue now or in the future which the ECF might need to defend. I doubt that any reassuring documents about "covering all the costs" would help to save the ECF from financial ruin in that case. Perhaps my imagination is running wild.

Alan Burke

Re: English Arbiters to suffer???

Post by Alan Burke » Tue Jun 12, 2012 11:01 pm

Nigel; thank you for your eventual reply. I therefore assume that at the current time you do not feel it is necessary to support your fellow countrymen in such a way - and I appreciate your point that discussions on such a players' boycott might be premature as FIDE might well persuade the Turkish President to change his mind and allow English arbiters to participate.

However, should there be no change in the situation I assume you wouldn't then consider it too premature to give your answer my questions ?

John McKenna

Re: English Arbiters to suffer???

Post by John McKenna » Wed Jun 13, 2012 12:03 am

Steve (Bloggs) - "I stand by my story."
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action." (Ian Fleming - Goldfinger)

Roger de Coverly
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Re: English Arbiters to suffer???

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Jun 13, 2012 1:02 am

IanDavis wrote: It would have been nicer if whoever started the legal action had been proud of it.
Thinking about this, had the action been mentioned in the reports prepared before the October AGM, there would have been a lively debate here for a few days. At the actual AGM, provided all the obvious questions had been answered, it's somewhere between plausible and probable that the ECF's position would have been endorsed with little opposition. The thesis of you know who is that there were still tactical legal objections to the disclosure even in October. April perhaps, but October? According to the Bermuda delegate, rumours of the involvement of an ex World Champion were common knowledge in international circles although actual written comment is hard to come by.

John McKenna

Re: English Arbiters to suffer???

Post by John McKenna » Wed Jun 13, 2012 1:33 am

"Now what was it that I enjoyed? It was really a pleasure. Ah yes, I remember - when Cleon coughed up three myriad drachs. Knights I love you for that - you deserved well of your country." (Aristophanes - The Acharnians)

ΦΕΡ ΙΔΩ, ΤΙ Δ' ΗΣΘΗΝ ΑΞΙΟΝ ΧΑΙΠΗΔΟΝΟΣ
ΕΓΩΔ ΕΦ Ω ΓΕ ΤΟ ΚΕΑΡ ΕΝΦΡΑΝΘΙΝ ΙΔΩΝ
ΤΟΙΣ ΠΕΝΤΕ ΤΑΛΑΝΤΟΙΣ ΟΙΣ ΚΛΕΟΝ ΕΞΗΜΕΣΕΝ.
ΤΑΥΘ ΩΣ ΕΓΑΝΩΘΗΝ, ΚΑΙ ΦΙΛΩ ΤΟΥΣ ΙΠΠΕΑΣ
ΔΙΑ ΤΟΥΤΟ ΤΟΥΡΓΟΝ ΑΞΙΟΝ ΓΑΡ ΕΛΛΑΔΙ.
(ΑΡΙΣΤΟΦΑΝΗΣ - ΑΧΑΡΝΕΙΣ)
Last edited by John McKenna on Thu Jun 14, 2012 5:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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JustinHorton
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Re: English Arbiters to suffer???

Post by JustinHorton » Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:23 am

In the first place, this is about good practice, or good governance if you prefer. If you engage in legal actions and deliberately keep that fact secret, then that is not good practice, precisely because when people do find out, they will not be at all pleased and will lack confidence in the people who have kept secrets. (Which is, in fact, pretty much what has happened.) They are unlikely to look kindly on arguments which say they have a responsbility to support this or that, but no right whatsoever to know.

In the second place, this is about proxies. We've had talk of "stooges" earlier in the thread, but the truth is that the ECF has been used as a stooge, a proxy, for people wishing to pursue a course of action. It's not a question of whether that course of action is right or wrong - it's a question of the ECF not being theirs to use.

As it is, we have secret legal actions and secret legal advice the provenance, nature and distribution of which we do not know. This is exactly how you alienate members and risk losing them. You can behave like this if it's your private organisation - or if you're treating it as your private organisation. But not otherwise.
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JustinHorton
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Re: English Arbiters to suffer???

Post by JustinHorton » Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:36 am

I mean I am inevitably reminded of CJ being allowed to distribute monies at the 2011 Championships without informing anybody else. That went well, too, didn't it?

Transparency is good practice. And if you can't do thingsi that way, don't do them at all.
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

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Roger de Coverly
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Re: English Arbiters to suffer???

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:53 am

JustinHorton wrote:In the first place, this is about good practice, or good governance if you prefer. If you engage in legal actions and deliberately keep that fact secret, then that is not good practice, precisely because when people do find out, they will not be at all pleased and will lack confidence in the people who have kept secrets.
The existence of the legal action had been disclosed to the October Council meeting, just not the ECF's involvement in it. If you don't think the ECF are involved, that falls beneath the radar of being a topic of any interest to anyone outside those with direct FIDE contact.

The directors would have been aware of the action, as they now confirm, but did they implicitly assume the voting Guarantors present at the meeting knew as well and the lack of fuss meant everyone was happy? It's still a little odd that no-one attending the meeting had become aware of the rumours of Kasparov taking legal action against FIDE and had been prompted to ask a question, or even been curious as to which Federations were involved. But no-one asked the question on the Forum either.

I was trying to figure out the "right to know". The ECF as we should be aware is a Company limited by Guarantee. This gives it a legal personality but no shareholders. Such organisations have to find a proxy for shareholders in order to have a body to receive reports, appoint directors etc. The structure in the ECF is to have the voting Guarantors, those who have to pay a £1 each in the event of the ECF's closure, as the chess organising institutions and to give them votes in rough proportion to the amount of chess they organise. So anyone representing such a Guarantor has the right to attend and ask questions. I don't think they have the right to an answer as the Directors can plead confidentiality. At the level of the whole meeting, I would think a majority vote could compel answers, even at the cost of dismissing and appointing more co-operative directors. This type of Council structure as a proxy for a shareholder meeting is by no means unique to the ECF.

Trust in the ECF Directors has undoubtedly been damaged. The evasive answers about the financing of the 2011 British cannot have helped.

Alex McFarlane
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Re: English Arbiters to suffer???

Post by Alex McFarlane » Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:04 am

Is the difference between the Giddins Blog and Andrew Farthing's answer simply the use of the word 'legal'.

In a post on this thread Mike Gunn has indicated that discussions could have taken place at Board level expressing concerns about repercussions of the sourse of funding for the legal action. Andrew certainly said at the April Council Meeting that he had forgotten to mention it but I also thought he went onto say (though it may have been someone else, possibly Mike again) that part of the reason for keeping quite was the possibility of the case being thrown out if the funder was known.

If I am correct then the Board did discuss this possibility, though possibly without having obtained legal advice.
Last edited by Alex McFarlane on Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

Mick Norris
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Re: English Arbiters to suffer???

Post by Mick Norris » Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:14 am

Roger de Coverly wrote: The existence of the legal action had been disclosed to the October Council meeting, just not the ECF's involvement in it. If you don't think the ECF are involved, that falls beneath the radar of being a topic of any interest to anyone outside those with direct FIDE contact.

The directors would have been aware of the action, as they now confirm, but did they implicitly assume the voting Guarantors present at the meeting knew as well and the lack of fuss meant everyone was happy? It's still a little odd that no-one attending the meeting had become aware of the rumours of Kasparov taking legal action against FIDE and had been prompted to ask a question, or even been curious as to which Federations were involved.
Why would we know?
Roger de Coverly wrote: But no-one asked the question on the Forum either.
Exactly
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Angus French
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Re: English Arbiters to suffer???

Post by Angus French » Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:54 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:It's still a little odd that no-one attending the meeting had become aware of the rumours of Kasparov taking legal action against FIDE and had been prompted to ask a question
Might Peter Wilson have known? It was he who asked the questions at the October 2011 AGM about the ECF’s relationship with FIDE, one of which was described by the SCCU report of the meeting as sounding like it was "planted". Peter Wilson, who was formerly ECF Marketing Director, may know Nick Faulks who on this Forum said “I've been trying to tell people in England about this for ages”. Both Peter and Nick have occasionally played chess for the Mushrooms club.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: English Arbiters to suffer???

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Jun 13, 2012 10:03 am

Angus French wrote: Peter Wilson, who was formerly ECF Marketing Director, may know Nick Faulks
I'm sure they've known each other for many years. Even more so when you consider that Peter was Guernsey's man in FIDE for a number of years and a regular Olympiad participant.

NickFaulks
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Re: English Arbiters to suffer???

Post by NickFaulks » Wed Jun 13, 2012 10:47 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Angus French wrote: Peter Wilson, who was formerly ECF Marketing Director, may know Nick Faulks
I'm sure they've known each other for many years. Even more so when you consider that Peter was Guernsey's man in FIDE for a number of years and a regular Olympiad participant.

My recollection is fuzzy, but while I do know Peter well and we sometimes meet, I think we would have known about this independently.

FIDE's head honchos obviously knew all about the lawsuit, they were very cross and not minded to keep it secret. I suppose you could criticise them, as some of you are the ECF, for not putting it in a banner headline on their website, but that case is less clear.
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Andrew Farthing
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Re: English Arbiters to suffer???

Post by Andrew Farthing » Wed Jun 13, 2012 10:49 am

JustinHorton wrote:In the first place, this is about good practice, or good governance if you prefer. If you engage in legal actions and deliberately keep that fact secret, then that is not good practice, precisely because when people do find out, they will not be at all pleased and will lack confidence in the people who have kept secrets. (Which is, in fact, pretty much what has happened.) They are unlikely to look kindly on arguments which say they have a responsbility to support this or that, but no right whatsoever to know.

In the second place, this is about proxies. We've had talk of "stooges" earlier in the thread, but the truth is that the ECF has been used as a stooge, a proxy, for people wishing to pursue a course of action. It's not a question of whether that course of action is right or wrong - it's a question of the ECF not being theirs to use.

As it is, we have secret legal actions and secret legal advice the provenance, nature and distribution of which we do not know. This is exactly how you alienate members and risk losing them. You can behave like this if it's your private organisation - or if you're treating it as your private organisation. But not otherwise.
I agree with the point about good practice/governance. I can only make the point once again that the Board's failure to disclose the ECF's involvement in the CAS legal action at the October 2011 AGM was NOT a policy decision, an agreed posiiton or the result of the Board's having received legal advice warning against disclosure. As I've said before, I can only speak for myself when I say that non-disclosure was not a conscious choice; it was an oversight.

Some of the comments made seem to imply that the ECF is trying to argue that non-disclosure was the appropriate action. This is not the case. This was acknowledged, along with an apology in my report to the Finance Council earlier this year.
One of the matters referred to in the Finance Committee report is the legal action undertaken at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to challenge FIDE’s actions in its appointment of five Vice Presidents. Our FIDE Delegate, Nigel Short, has provided a report on this, which I shall not replicate here.

The ECF Board first discussed this matter at a meeting on 26th February 2011, at the instigation of its President. Following this, I consulted with the ECF’s legal adviser, David Anderton, on the potential risks and how these could be managed. In due course, the Board decided by a majority e-mail vote on 4th March to authorise the initiation of legal action.

The Board should have advised Council of its decision at the Finance Council meeting in April 2011 or, having failed to do so, at the AGM six months later. That this did not happen was due to an oversight, for which I apologise. There was no intention to hide this matter from Council – it was genuinely overlooked – but this does not excuse the omission.
Justin's use of the term "stooges" is, I think, unjustified. The same point applies as I made in response to Ernie Lazenby's "star struck rabbits" comment earlier in the thread. No matter what the origin of the proposal - and incidentally, I now see that I actually confirmed in my report to Finance Council that it came to the Board via the President - it would not have happened without the support of a majority of the Board. This support was forthcoming only after considerable debate. It was not simply nodded through. The Board knew what it was choosing to do and believed that it was the right choice.

With no expectation that it will be heeded, I shall nevertheless say once again for the record that I have no evidence of the existence of any legal advice as referred to by Giddins in his blog and alluded to by Justin with his "secret legal advice" comment. Other Board members have also confirmed on this forum that they did not know of and had not been given any legal advice about non-disclosure. I therefore repeat that this means that either (1) no such legal advice existed or (2) it existed but had not been disclosed to a number of Board members, including myself. (2) doesn't seem likely to me, at least as part of a "conspiracy of silence", because it relies on the accident of the Board members not "in the know" failing to say anything. (1) remains the most likely explanation, and in the absence of a shred of evidence to the contrary, it's what I believe.

(I realise that in the minds of some, there is an option (3), namely that those of us who say that we received no legal advice regarding non-disclosure are lying. I don't include this because I know it to be false.)

To pick up some points made during the rather frenetic exchanges yesterday evening, when I was out enjoying a lecture on Nimzowitsch by Robert Bellin at a pub in Walsall:

- The ECF does have a written undertaking concerning costs relating to the action;
- Legal advice on this was taken (and followed);
- The Board did consider the question of counterparty risk;
- The final decision was the result of weighing up the legal advice, the Board's judgement of the counterparty risk and the merits of the action;
- Being satisfied that the action did not place the ECF at financial risk was, understandably, an essential pre-condition in the minds of the Board members.

The decision to proceed was supported by a large majority, with one vote against and one abstention (non-response).

While I was typing this, Alex asked whether there might be a distinction between 'legal' and other advice. To the best of my recollection, there was not any 'non-legal' advice or other discussion about this point at Board level prior to the 2011 AGM. The subject did come up in Board e-mail exchanges on 30 November 2011, after the AGM, when the lawsuit was being discussed on the Forum and the question of the identity of the backer was raised. At that point - and I stress that as far as I can recall, this was the first time the issue of disclosure arose - I asked the question whether we could disclose the name. It was decided not to in advance of the CAS hearing, which was then scheduled for early January. If there was any legal advice received by any Board member before giving their view, this was not revealed. It would not have been a concern if there had been; it would have been helpful.

When the Board received a report on the CAS hearing from Nigel at a Board meeting on 14th January 2012 (i.e. three months after the AGM), it was told that there had been a challenge by FIDE's lawyers on the basis that the ECF/Georgian Chess Federation action had third party funding, but this had been dismissed by CAS as irrelevant. Nevertheless, the fact that it had been a point of contention in the hearing vindicated the decision on 30 November not to disclose the backer's name and prompted me to raise the matter again with Nigel when asking him to prepare his report for Finance Council. At that time, I agreed that the name would not be disclosed in the report but that I would reveal it if (when) the question was asked at Council.

I stress - the above two paragraphs relate to events after the 2011 AGM. There was no Board discussion of whether or not to disclose information about the CAS action (or the identity of the backer) at any time before the AGM.

This has been a lengthy post, but I've tried to cover as much ground as possible. I spent a lot of time responding on the forum yesterday and I need to crack on with other work today. I therefore won't be as responsive today as I was yesterday.

Jonathan Rogers
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Re: English Arbiters to suffer???

Post by Jonathan Rogers » Wed Jun 13, 2012 11:42 am

Thank you for your time posting this, Andrew. I have a few more questions on matters that you have not covered:
Andrew Farthing wrote:
Justin's use of the term "stooges" is, I think, unjustified. The same point applies as I made in response to Ernie Lazenby's "star struck rabbits" comment earlier in the thread. No matter what the origin of the proposal - and incidentally, I now see that I actually confirmed in my report to Finance Council that it came to the Board via the President - it would not have happened without the support of a majority of the Board. This support was forthcoming only after considerable debate. It was not simply nodded through. The Board knew what it was choosing to do and believed that it was the right choice.
Justin used the term "stooge" in reference to the fact that the ECF is pursuing an action at the behest of another party - how is that unjustified? Surely no one is suggesting that the idea of taking legal action first occurred to CJ himself and not to kasparov's company.... My question is whether, during the Board's lengthy discussions, anyone ever explicitly referred to the aims and objectives of the ECF as a limited company and asked how this action could be reconciled with those aims?
Andrew Farthing wrote: At that point - and I stress that as far as I can recall, this was the first time the issue of disclosure arose - I asked the question whether we could disclose the name. It was decided not to in advance of the CAS hearing, which was then scheduled for early January. If there was any legal advice received by any Board member before giving their view, this was not revealed. It would not have been a concern if there had been; it would have been helpful.
So on what ground was the decision taken, if not on any purported legal grounds? Did Kasparov's company ever request non-disclosure/delayed disclosure?

Andrew Farthing wrote: When the Board received a report on the CAS hearing from Nigel at a Board meeting on 14th January 2012 (i.e. three months after the AGM), it was told that there had been a challenge by FIDE's lawyers on the basis that the ECF/Georgian Chess Federation action had third party funding, but this had been dismissed by CAS as irrelevant. Nevertheless, the fact that it had been a point of contention in the hearing vindicated the decision on 30 November not to disclose the backer's name and prompted me to raise the matter again with Nigel when asking him to prepare his report for Finance Council. At that time, I agreed that the name would not be disclosed in the report but that I would reveal it if (when) the question was asked at Council.
Now from my point of view, I am not at all surprised that the CAS found the funding point to be irrelevant. The CAS would (I imagine) have been much more likely to have thrown out the litigation if they thought it was vexatious, which might be established if it were found that its main motivation was to exhaust the FIDE coffers. Yet it seems to me that some people who are actually supporting the litigation have been admitting this (perhaps I am mistaken on this, though). Was it ever suggested to the Board that this was one of the motivations behind the company and/or was it ever a significant motive of any of the ECF Board?

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