News archive 2020

Dr Heiner Kahlert included in Who’s Who Legal Sports & Entertainment

Dr Kahlert has been included in Who’s Who Legal (WWL) as a National Leader for Germany in Sports & Entertainment 2021. According to WWL’s survey amongst peers and clients, “Heiner Kahlert comes in for high praise thanks to his outstanding knowledge of sports law and his work advising and representing clients in complex contentious proceedings.” In addition, just as in the previous two years, Dr Kahlert will also feature in WWL’s listing of Future Leaders Arbitration 2021, which will be published shortly.

FIBA establishes the Dr Dirk-Reiner Martens Award

At its session of 6 November 2020, the FIBA Central Board approved the establishment of the Dr Dirk-Reiner Martens Award.

The Award will be presented every two years to an individual who has made a significant academic contribution in the area of basketball-related legal matters and/or the resolution of international sports disputes. The award reflects Dr Martens' commitment to constantly improve the sports regulatory framework and to support young sports lawyers.

Almost coinciding with the first anniversary of his sudden passing, the creation of this Award is a wonderful recognition of Dr Martens’ legacy in the areas of sports law and dispute resolution. Martens Rechtsanwälte extends its heartfelt gratitude to FIBA.

David Menz participated as speaker in the “FIFA Executive Programme in Sports Arbitration”

David Menz gave a presentation on the BAT as part of the course "Executive Programme in Sports Arbitration" organised for the first time by FIFA. This course is aimed at executives from the world of sports and is designed to familiarise them with the specifics of arbitration in sports through various lectures by recognised experts in this field.

Martens Rechtsanwälte successfully represents Türkgücü against BFV and DFB

Today, the Munich District Court ruled largely in favour of our client Türkgücü München in the proceedings against the Bavarian Football Association e.V. (BFV) and the German Football Association (DFB). The decision (ref. no.: 37 O 11770/20) shows in particular that, despite the undisputed autonomy of associations, interim measures aimed at participation in a sports competition may exceptionally be granted.
The BFV must now revoke its nomination of FC Schweinfurt 05 for the German Cup and decide afresh on the nomination, taking into account however the legal opinion of the court.

As a consequence, the BFV now has two options: Either it nominates Türkgücü München or it changes its regulations on the nomination within a very short period of time – this time, however, without exceeding its margin of discretion.

For the (German language) press release of the Local Court of Munich, please click here.

David Menz published an article in the conference proceeding “eSport Law – Politics, Practice and Science in Dialogue”

Together with Dr Paul Fischer, David Menz has written an essay on the question of the "Implementation of the organisational structures of competitive sports in eSport" for the conference proceeding "eSport Law - Politics, Practice and Science in Dialogue" of the Research Centre for eSport Law (FeSR). The essay deals with the interesting question of whether the organisational structures existing in the traditional sports world can be transferred to the eSport sector. The conference book can be purchased here.

David Menz and Maximilian Wegge achieved a great victory for Türkgücü Munich before the Munich District Court

The nomination of FC Schweinfurt 05 for the German Cup 2020/2021 has to be revoked for the time being. Instead, the Bavarian Football Association has to nominate Türkgücü Munich preliminarily. Türkgücü Munich has well deserved the participation in the German Cup due to its outstanding performance in the 2019/2020 season. Now it is up to both the Bavarian and the German Football Association to make our client's participation possible. For the German news text on the website of Türkgücü Munich, please click here.

David Menz will attend as speaker the ARD Online/AIAC webinar “Employment and Contractual Issues in Sport: Recent Developments Post Covid-19”

David Menz and the other participants of the panel, Henry Goldschmidt (Morgan Sports Law), Nick de Marco QC (Blackstone Chambers) and Aahna Mehrotra (TNT Law Practice), will discuss and share their experiences in the light of the latest developments in labour and contractual matters in sports law since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

For the flyer of the webinar, please click here.

Our contribution to climate protection

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. This challenge can only be mastered if companies act sustainably. This requires, in particular, that CO2 emissions be reduced to a minimum and unavoidable emissions be compensated for in climate protection projects.

Martens Rechtsanwälte takes this social responsibility very seriously. Long before the COVID-19 crisis, we were already trying to reduce travelling and paper consumption as much as possible, in particular by using electronic file management and modern means of communication as far as possible.

A good example for this is the Basketball Arbitral Tribunal, which we developed and have been administering since 2007 and which can be considered a pioneer in international arbitration regarding sustainable conduct of proceedings. Communication in proceedings has always taken place almost exclusively by electronic means, which has not only saved large amounts of paper in almost 1600 proceedings thus far, but has also prevented many trips due to numerous telephone and video conferences instead of personal meetings.

Furthermore, we have always endeavoured to replace travelling by plane and car with travelling by train as far as possible.

In order to contribute even more to climate protection in the future, we decided at the beginning of this year to compensate for all CO2 emissions that are caused by our business operations. This not only takes into account business trips, but also the energy consumption required for our office premises, the travel to and from work of our individual employees, catering, working materials and any waste created. The CO2 value calculated from these factors is compensated by a payment to climate protection projects. For the year 2020, we recently made a corresponding payment to atmosfair. Atmosfair has received many awards for sustainable CO2 compensation projects (Atmosfair Test and Comparative Studies).

According to the certificate issued by atmosfair, 24,130 kg of CO2 greenhouse gases have been compensated by our payment. Business trips to be undertaken in the second half of 2020, along with any other unforeseen emissions, will be compensated separately at the end of this year.

Martens Rechtsanwälte publish an Article on the Problem of “Political” Protest of Football Players on the Pitch

In their article, Maximilian Wegge and David Menz take a closer look at the question of what form of "political" protest by players is currently possible under the FIFA rules and to what extent it is necessary to adapt the existing regulations. For the full article, please click here.

Heiner Kahlert will be speaking at the online forum „Covid-19 and Sports Law”

On 1 July 2020, Heiner Kahlert will be speaking at the online forum „Covid-19 and Sports Law”, which is supported by the German Court of Arbitratrion for Sport (DIS-Sport) and DIS 40. Registrations are still possible. Please note that the forum will be conducted in German.  For the invitation and the programme, please click here.

Martens Lawyers successfully represent the World Bridge Federation in a damage claim

Dr Heiner Kahlert and David Menz have successfully represented the World Bridge Federation (WBF) in civil court proceedings before the Regional Court of Cologne.
The WBF was sued by two senior bridge players for payment of economic and moral damages in a total amount exceeding EUR 150,000. The background to the claim was that due to the players having illicitly communicated with each other by way of coughing at the 2013 World Championship, the WBF had subsequently disqualified them from the tournament, annulled their championship title, and banned them for life as a pair. The Dusseldorf Court of Appeals had declared the ban, but not the disqualification and the annulment of the title, invalid in 2017.

The Regional Court of Cologne dismissed the damage claim almost in its entirety. Only a very small portion of the claimed economic damages (related to legal fees incurred in the proceedings before the WBF judicial body in 2013) was awarded to the claimants. However, the claim for moral damages was dismissed in full. With regard to the latter, the court held that the claimants failed to proof a violation of their personality rights by the WBF which could justify a monetary compensation, not least because there were sufficient indicators for them having indeed violated the rules of the game as per the WBF’s accusations.

Martens Rechtsanwalte informs about the FIFA Circular Letter 1714 on Regulatory issues in the face of COVID-19

Please find the summary of the FIFA Circular Letter 1714 on Regulatory issues in the face of COVID-19 here.

The Basketball Arbitral Tribunal (BAT) received case 1500

The Basketball Arbitral Tribunal (BAT), which was developed by Martens Rechtsanwälte, received its first case on 29 May 2007. Since then, the number of requests for arbitration submitted to the BAT each year has increased almost every year. After a little more than 13 years, the BAT has now received its 1500th case.
Since its creation, the BAT, with its innovative mechanism to resolve contractual disputes quickly and cost-effectively, has developed into a well-established international court of arbitration that has become the second-biggest sports arbitral tribunal in the world, based on case numbers. The arbitrators decide ex aequo et bono and their awards have gradually built a jurisprudence creating equitable principles in relation to recurrent issues in the context of basketball contracts.

In March 2019, the BAT hosted its first user conference. By developing further the rules and the administration of the proceedings, the BAT is dedicated to constantly improving the user-friendliness of the system.

For additional information on the Basketball Arbitral Tribunal, please click here.
For additional information on BAT’s jurisprudence, please click here.

Martens Lawyers advise on Odriozola-transfer to FC Bayern Munich

Dr Heiner Kahlert and David Menz advised the Spanish national team player Álvaro Odriozola on his loan from Real Madrid to FC Bayern Munich. Martens Lawyers cooperated with Rodrigo Garcia of Laffer Abogados in Madrid with whom they had already collaborated on the transfer of Arturo Vidal from Juventus FC to FC Bayern Munich.