English Chess Forum

Umm, at first sight the text above (which was written a couple of weeks ago and comes from earlier in the current thread) doesn’t seem to fit with what’s stated in the timeline document which makes clear that the Board - of which Jack, as a Non-executive Director, is a member - knew, in advance of its vote on whether to proceed, that legal action had already been initiated.

(The timeline document tells us, for example, that CJdM forwarded documents - including a copy of the Statement of Appeal - to the Board on 24 February and then that the Board, at its meeting on 26 February, “discussed the documents received and expressed surprise that legal action at CAS appeared to have been initiated without the ECF’s authority”. The timeline also says that on 27 February, “AF wrote to CJdM expressing the Board’s surprise and concern and asking him to comment on the apparent initiation of legal action”.)

I’m sorry to put you on the spot Jack, but would you like to comment? Could it be that you weren’t up-to-speed with events – perhaps you’d not been copied on correspondence (including the internal minutes of the Board meeting which took place on 26 February)? Or is there some other explanation?

As stated in the Time-line, the Statement of Appeal filed by White & Case on 24 Feb 2011 was forwarded to all Board members on that date.

I have already commented on this Forum that Jack Rudd was not present at the Board meeting in London on 26 Feb 2011. The attendees were myself, Gareth Caller, Mike Gunn, Adam Raoof, David Welch and John Wickham.

I also commented previously that I cannot be certain when the draft minutes were circulated. I was producing them myself in those days and tried to do so pretty quickly, but I honestly can't say whether they were circulated by 27 Feb (the day after the all-day meeting in London).

The Board took its vote on 1 March on the basis that it was a genuine 'proceed/don't proceed' decision. Jack's stated assumption, quoted by Angus, was therefore correct. Had the Board voted not to proceed, in practice what would have happened is that White & Case would have been instructed to withdraw the preliminary Statement of Appeal. In the event, the Board voted to proceed.

It would have saved a lot of interrogation to have said this in the first place, instead of trying to give the impression that the vote to proceed was the first time the issue had come to the board.

Andrew, two comments, if I may:
1. Jack appears still to have been in the dark on 23 July 2012 - when he wrote the text quoted above - and this was well over a year after the Board meeting of 24 February 2011. Presumably the internal minutes will have been circulated long before July 2012 (and in time for the board meeting which followed; certainly an edited version of the minutes has been available from the ECF web site for some time). Also: I assume Jack was copied on your communication to CJ of 27 February.
2. I'd really like a response from Jack - sorry, Jack.

The draft minutes of the Board meeting held on 26 February 2011 were circulated to members of the Board on 3 March 2011.

_________________
ECF Company Secretary and Financial Controller

I don't believe that I have ever tried to give the impression that the vote on 1 March 2011 was the first time the issue had come to the Board.

In Roger's earlier posts, he has questioned the truth of my statement that the Board meeting on 26 Feb 2011 was the first discussion of a proposal to take legal action in CAS (I have no record of any e-mails on this issue between receipt of the documents on 24 Feb and the Board meeting on 26 Feb, when the issue was discussed). I believe that this is the first time that he has accused me of trying to claim that 1 March 2011 was the first time it was discussed by the Board.

As for the 26 Feb meeting, this was the first discussion of a proposal to go to CAS. Previously, as the timeline states, there was discussion of signing a letter to FIDE in October 2010 (along with a number of other federations) and an exchange of e-mails in Jan 2011 concerning whether the ECF should sign a letter to FIDE asking for the Assembly minutes to be published. The subject of whether doing the latter committed the Board to a future legal action in CAS was raised in Jan 2011, but it was immediately confirmed that there was no commitment. The Board therefore understood in Jan 2011 that it was simply deciding the question of whether to sign the letter to FIDE about the Minutes and did not debate the merits of any future CAS action or whether there was an appetite to proceed with one if the question arose.

I stand by my earlier statement and the accuracy of the published timeline. If people such as Roger choose to believe that my earlier statement was misleading, so be it. I have taken great pains to publish an account of events which is factually correct, and I have similarly never sought to mislead anyone in my posts on this subject.

These casual sideswipes at my integrity are a feature of the forum which I shall not miss when I walk away from it on 13 October.

It would have been easy enough to comment on Jack's post that it was accurate only so far as it discussed the authorisation of the formal legal action. The allegation which has been around for some time and also now seems more or less established as fact, is that the President and ECF delegate to FIDE developed the notion of the action against FIDE independently to an extent of the ECF Board.

It's necessary to check words carefully when the phrase "take legal action" against FIDE is given quite a separate meaning by the ECF from "take action against FIDE".

At some stage in January, the writers of letters to FIDE were reduced to just the ECF and Georgia. I'm guessing that White & Case were involved by this stage and advising parties on how to proceed. This to my mind marks the start of action against FIDE. It would also have marked the end unless an offer of financial support was made to the ECF.

So in January, the Board were persuaded to take action against FIDE. Later that month or in February, the President (and FIDE delegate?) escalated this into action in CAS with financial and legal support from the Kasparov foundation and White & Case. The end February and March votes represent a chance for the Board as a whole to disassociate the ECF from the action. In the event, they decided to proceed provided financial guarantees were in place. For undisclosed reasons, the action wasn't made public, even to the extent of non-disclosure in the Accounts.

if Andrew is at all able to look at the questions I put here, I would be obliged.

_________________
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

Andrew,

I believe that Roger is simply trying to find out what has really happened. I am very grateful to you on this forum that you do come and talk to us and I hope that you do decide to stay on, in your post. I do not wish for you to leave nor feel that your integrity is under question.

When you hold a post like the one that you do, you have to accept that when things like this happen, that there will be questions and people will have concerns. Whilst I accept that you have never sought to purposefully mislead anyone, I do believe that you have not always told us 'the whole truth and nothing but the truth'.

For example, when asked about the costs for the White and Case memorandum, you stated over and over that there

"was no cost to the ECF"

Whilst this was 'true' it was not the whole truth because in fact, somebody (who we still do not know) else was paying for this on the behalf of the ECF an amount which remains undisclosed.

In the end, you did say that of course 'yes' there was 'a cost' associated to the Memorandum, just not one that was 'relevant' because the ECF was not paying for it.

Why not just say so in the first place?

The problem with all of this, is that if you keep on giving us only part of the truth in dribs and drabs, then the questions will keep on flowing.

Indeed.


Andrew, I have no doubts as to your personal integrity. Similarly, I'm grateful for the time you have taken in this matter. I am also prepared to accept that the decision to get involved with the lawsuit would have been agreed regardless and the ECF broke none of its own rules in making the decision as it did (not that I count my opinion on that final issue as particularly well-informed).

That said, there are many open questions as to what exactly happened. I'm not saying that you in particular are responsible for answering them and I'm certainly not saying that you are responsible for the fact that they have not been answered.

Nevertheless, I agree with Krishna that as long as the ECF as a whole don't answer them the questions will keep being asked and the matter will not be resolved.

_________________
http://www.streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com

"Of all the stupid questions so far, This one is particularly annoying, and irrelevant and when I meet you, I propose to write it down on cardboard and nail it to your face."
- Jerry Sadowitz

The papers for the Finance Council meeting try to give the impression that the Vice President issue first came to the Board's attention on 26th February.



No attempt was later made to clarify that "this matter" didn't refer to the Vice President issue, which as we now know had already been discussed in January, but the escalation of the Vice President issue to CAS.

Please could Andrew – or any other Board member, for that matter - also respond to the points made here?

To summarise: the Timeline document states that “The Board received no further communication on this matter, from White & Case or any other party, after the vote on March 1.”. To me this is surprising in itself: wouldn’t White & Case have kept the ECF informed of progress - they should have, shouldn't they? But it also suggests that the Board may not have known that a timeliness issue had been raised, may not have known of or approved the second appeal to the CAS, and may not have seen or approved the Appeal Brief before it was submitted to the CAS. Was the ECF really not involved in these aspects? That can't be true, can it?

We now have a serious problem with the timeline.
A limited number of Directors attended the meeting of 26 Feb. Minutes of this meeting were not circulated until Mar 3. This is TWO days after the vote to 'initiate' CAS action against FIDE. It is therefore confirmed that several Board members were unaware of CJdM's premature actions before voting. This is unacceptable as it may have influenced their opinion. It also casts into doubt Andrew Farthing's statement that the Board were fully aware of the condition not to proceed without financial security. I therefore claim again that the vote was not in fact in accordance with Article 68 and that conditional votes should not have been counted as YES votes. I really would like to hear David Anderton's opinion on this issue.

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www.scottishchesschamp.co.uk/

There’s not going to be an end to this is there. Every answer is greeted by more questions. Alex McFarlane of Chess Scotland now appears to be casting doubt about the honesty of Andrew Farthing of the English Chess Federation. If Chess Scotland does not accept the responses of the English Chess Federation perhaps they might consider taking the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, also known as CAS!

Presumably Board members would have known either from the documents sent by CJ on 24 February or from the communication sent by AF to CJ on 27 February that White & Case had initiated action against FIDE, ahead of an ECF Board vote.
Can we keep Chess Scotland vs. ECF nonsense and any other obfuscation out of this please?