CAS case clarification required

[Andrew Martin]

A seance is almost inevitable, I would have thought, in order to find volunteers to take on the vacant jobs.

[JustinHorton]

Just to remind people amongst all the hilarity from ECF officials that this thread is about the $1m court case the ECF undertook with the primary purpose of restricting funds for chess in developing nations. Somehow that sounds less funny.

Is it now accepted that this was the primary purpose? I've seen various suggestions (from supporters of the action as well as sceptics) that this was the general idea, but it's not been clear to be that it's been said overtly.

For what it's worth, I don't for one moment believe that that was the motivation of the ECF Board.

No, nor do I.

[John Philpott]

David Sedgwick wrote

For what it's worth, I don't for one moment believe that that was the motivation of the ECF Board.

Justin Horton wrote

No, nor do I.

That makes three of us!

[Neil Graham]

A seance is almost inevitable, I would have thought, in order to find volunteers to take on the vacant jobs.

I understand that some officers & board members have been likened to zombies or the living dead but I think this is going too far!

[Peter D Williams]

For the record, I would not have voted to take legal action (in practice I did not cast a vote), and I would have liked the responsibility for the decision to take this action to be explicitly removed from the hands of the ECF Board by the constitution. I know that there was no real enthusiasm amongst Directors to pursue this action, and in practice I recognise that we have to work within FIDE to effect change. The only people who win in cases like these are lawyers.

I agree with Adam and he is right its only the lawyers that win in these sort of cases.

[Krishna Shiatis]

For the record, I would not have voted to take legal action (in practice I did not cast a vote), and I would have liked the responsibility for the decision to take this action to be explicitly removed from the hands of the ECF Board by the constitution. I know that there was no real enthusiasm amongst Directors to pursue this action, and in practice I recognise that we have to work within FIDE to effect change. The only people who win in cases like these are lawyers.

I agree with Adam and he is right its only the lawyers that win in these sort of cases.

I agree. Also, I think Adam is spot on. He would have liked that the responsibilty to have been taken out of the hands of the ECF Board by constitution - I guess he too would have like better controls/guidance to have been in place at the right time.

For the future, this does seem to be the best way forward and also may achieve some sense of closure if the rules are put in place somewhere, as I am sure that present and future directors who are not keen to pursue such actions can then heave a sigh of relief.

[Roger de Coverly]

Is it now accepted that this was the primary purpose? I've seen various suggestions (from supporters of the action as well as sceptics) that this was the general idea, but it's not been clear to be that it's been said overtly.

As several have written, it's unlikely that was in the minds of the ECF Directors. What was in the minds of White & Case, Kasparov and any other backers isn't known of course. Nigel makes much of the amounts being expended by FIDE on both this case and the one about Kirsan's eligibility to stand. It's a circular argument, whilst FIDE could have conceded the cases and saved the money, it would not have needed to make those decisions if it hadn't been challenged by White & Case and their backers.

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... &start=117 for Nigel's comments to chessvibes.

[Alex McFarlane]

Adam's indication of his (non)-vote only leaves Peter Purland to confirm that he was the other one not to vote. I feel it also fair to state that the info given to me indicates that only one official was in contact with White and Case and that was not Nigel Short.

Andrew Farthing emailed his request for a vote at 15.44 on Mar 1, 2011. By 19.04 that same day Andrew was able to announce the result of that vote. This voting period may well confirm Adam's claim of board reluctance. Perhaps someone in power can say how long an email vote usually takes to gain the 6 votes necessary for acceptance.

[Krishna Shiatis]

I think it is very understandable that ECF Directors would want the organisation to be a company limited by guarantee. However, I'm not sure that the Directors really understand what this entails and what responsibilities that this puts on them. I don't think you can blame the Directors for this, after all they are volunteers from a whole array of different backgrounds. I do think that this could lead some Directors into trouble and it seems to me that there are quite a lot of examples where the ECF is very close to acting illegally. If you take the CAS case, if the ECF undertook the case on behalf of Kasparov then I assume that this would be illegal, because it would give Kasparov a legal entitlement to limit his liabilities that he should not have had. The ECF must argue that the CAS case was for their own benefit, merely funded by an altruistic Kasparov. I think the ECF will get away with this, but I'm not sure I'd want to risk it as an ECF Director.

Indeed. I concur.

It is about the risk and reducing it where and when you can.

[John McKenna]

Kasparov has spoken -
www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8474

Would like to have asked him how the spoils were to be split if the ECF & Georgians had won the case and FIDE had to cough up.

[Chris Rice]

Danailov bites back against FIDE getting the onerous pre-conditions for suing FIDE annulled.

http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/bulga ... t-annulled

[Roger de Coverly]

Danailov bites back against FIDE getting the onerous pre-conditions for suing FIDE annulled.

Although they tend to unite to defend Kirsan against challenges from outsiders like Karpov and Kasparov, there is a lot of dissent between FIDE Vice-Presidents. Danailov and the Turkish guy are always at each others throats and Levitov of Russia banned FIDE/Agon from holding a Grand Prix in Russia.