After two separate procedures at the Dutch National Court of Appeal for Motorsport ("College van Beroep voor Autosportrechtspraak") a license was withdrawn from a prominent Dutch driver. In short: he was sentenced because of bad behaviour both during a meeting of the stewards and on the track.
As a consequence of art. 180 of the Sporting Code of the FIA, the driver was not entitled to appeal to the International Courts and the sentence of the DutchNational Court of Appeal Motorsport was final and binding. As a consequence he was not allowed to race during a period of one year....
With help from its motorsport attorney the Dutch driver challenged this sentence for the District Court of The Hague in The Netherlands by means of an injunction ("Kort Geding").
The driver's plea consisted of 10 pages with grievances. His argumentation was structured along the following lines:
1. The ASN acted unlawfully and breached general principles of civil law by erronously converting a conditional sentence into an unconditional sentence;
2. The Dutch ASN abused its monopolistic power in Dutch Motorsport governance;
3. The ASN refused to refer the case to the International Court of Appeal of the FIA;
4. Because of art. 17 of the Dutch Constitution and art. 6 of the Treaty of Rome, the District Court is competent to hear to case;
5. The sole and exclusive competency of the Dutch National Court of Appeal for Motorsport as prescribed in the license agreement by and between the driver and the ASN should be considered as illegal and therefore be declared null and void;
The line of defense of the Dutch ASN consisted of 5 pages with the following arguments:
1. The driver signed his license agreement with the ASN and agreed explicitly to respect the sole competence of the National Court of Appeal for Motorsport;
2. The driver committed himself to the rules and regulations of the FIA encompassing same exclusivity;
3. The case was therefore inadmissible and the president of the District Court had no authority to hear the case;
4. The conversion error was denied;
The Judge decided to hear the case! After 40 minutes of discussion mainly between the Judge and the chairman of the Dutch ASN and his attorney, the judge ruled that the Court of Appeal for Motorsport breached a principle of law by erroneously converting a conditional sentence into an unconditional one without fulfilment of all prescribed conditions.
The Judge expressed his views that the ASN had a big problem which they had to solve right away. If not, the Judge would solve it for the ASN!
After this statement and unsuccessful attempts by the ASN to convince the Judge that the license should remain withdrawn but then for a shorter period, the ASN recognised that they had sadly lost the case.
Due to some hurdles created by the ASN after court case, the return of the license as ordered by the Judge took three weeks. The driver missed his first race of the season...
From a motorsportlaw perspective, this first case in the Netherlands forms a landmark decision. It will for sure cause the Dutch Court of Appeal for Motorsport to improve their important job by enhancing the quality of their decision-making process and to respect the civil laws.
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