Om Lalla on world sport court

ATTORNEY-AT-LAW Om Lalla is only the third Trinidadian jurist to be appointed to an international tribunal within recent times. Lalla was appointed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) by the Board of the International Council of Arbitration for Sport (ICAS) at their last meeting held in Lausanne, Switzerland, on December 3. He received his instrument of appointment on January 1. Lalla, practises in both the criminal and civil jurisdiction, and was nominated by FIFA. He is the first person from the Caribbean to be appointed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Professional Football League (PFL), the Appeals Committee of the Professional Football League, and currently serves as a member of the Appeals Committee of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation. FIFA have agreed to recognise the CAS jurisdiction for football-related disputes and accordingly has made nominations to the CAS for arbitrators to hear football-related issues.

Karl Hudson Phillips QC was appointed as a judge of the International Criminal Court, while former Appeal Court judge Anthony Lucky was made a judge of the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea. The Court for Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is an independent institution providing international sport with an organisation capable of settling all legal disputes relating to sport. The CAS has the task of resolving legal disputes in sport through arbitration by pronouncing arbitral awards that have the same enforceability as judgments of ordinary courts. The CAS also gives advisory opinions concerning legal questions related to sport and provides mediation services. The CAS was created in 1984 and is under the administrative and financial authority of the International Council of Arbitration for Sport (ICAS). The CAS has more than 150 arbitrators from 55 countries, chosen for their knowledge of arbitration and sports law.

Around 50 cases are registered by CAS each year. The head office of the Court is in Lausanne, Switzerland and it has two decentralised offices, in Sydney, Australia and New York, USA. Any dispute directly or indirectly linked to sport whether of a commercial nature or of a disciplinary nature following a decision by a sport organisation can be submitted to the CAS. Any individual or legal entity with capacity to act may have recourse to the services of the CAS, for example an athlete club or sports federation. Om Lalla is the son of attorney-at-law, Kenneth R Lalla SC, Chairman of the Public Service, Police Service and Defence Force Commissions and the Deputy Chairman of the Caribbean Judicial and Legal Service Commissions.