[email protected] a écrit :
> Sandy wrote:
>
>> This is top-posted in order to discourage all from drawing any
>> conclusion that the arb award relates to a finding about doping. It
>> does not.
>>
>> First, the award was to be based on (insurance) contract law, and
>> "winning" was the condition of payment. Had Armstrong been
>> disqualified, and therefore had lost, no payment was due.
>>
>> Second, arbitrators will listen to lots of extraneous testimony and read
>> lots of useless documents. If the parties are willing to pay the
>> panel's fees, why would they not do so ?
>>
>> Third, the form of an award is not mandated, and findings of fact are
>> not required. In fact, arbitrators may find both law and fact
>> incorrectly, but unless the award indicates flaming irrationality, abuse
>> of procedural fairness, or a violation of public policy, it is enforceable.
>>
>> Without researching the controlling law of the contract, an award of
>> punitive damages is highly irregular in such a matter, and may well be
>> unenforceable, if contested in a confirmation hearing. Then again,
>> maybe not.
>>
>
> Well, I'm not going to look it up for citation, apologies for laziness
> or whatever, but when this cowpie was turned upsidedown and stirred
> previously, the insurance company made it sound like "he cheated, we're
> gonna prove he cheated, and not pay him, *according to terms of our
> contract*", at least as quoted in print.
>
Pity I didn't write it clearly enough. Cheating would only have been a
strategic defense if they could go forward and prove it to the
satisfaction of UCI, and UCI instructed FFC to disallow the 7th win.
Cheating was not an element, not as in doping, not in any manner.
However, it could be argued that the win was obtained by fraudulent
means. The only way I could see a decision in favor of SCA would be if
the win had been disallowed. Let's not hold our breath.
>
>
> One can say there was "no finding of fact" but the fact remains that
> the arb board listened to all and sundry (which strikes this layman as
> an effort to find facts and be fair; probably too much Perry Mason in
> my upbringing. Matlock, of course, even worse.)
It is a habit of arbitrators to examine things that would never be
admissible in a court. I recall learning that, at my first
representation, when the answer to my objection was : "OK, yes, but we
will hear the testimony and think about how to evaluate it later on."
London Court of Arbitration, 1989.
> After due
> consideration, and I guess not bound by legal constraint to any
> template from what you say, Sandy,
That's quite more than I said. Feel free to re-read paragraph 3.
> they awarded not only principal, but
> interest *and* a sizeable penalty,
Yes, and I am truly surprised, although the controlling law may allow
for this. Typically, punitive awards are not made in a dispute over the
terms of a contract. Especially in the entertainment insurance area,
covering things like game shows, national lotteries, etc. As I said, I
don't know which was the controlling law of the contract, but I remain
very surprised.
> which again to this retired plumber
> (not the eavesdropping kind, please; and, past the age of three or so,
> I've never picked used gum out of a wastebasket, either) seems to
> indicate a certain opinion regarding events related to the contract,
>
The events of the contract are the negotiation, the execution, the
payment of premium, the contingent event and its result, then the
obligation to pay or not. Were insurance law as sexy as you imagine,
there would be a lot more lawyers gravitating to it.
> and especially, legal manuevers made in attempt to avoid paying.
>
> Pretty funny when the report was made for God and all to hear (if by
> leak, and later) that their secret agents couldn't find anything in the
> vacated Disco (Postal?) hotel rooms immediately after check-out. Well,
> that's why they invented throw-down! What a bunch of pikers...
It is not unusual for an insurer (or its reinsurers) to refuse to pay
when something strikes their imagination as putrid. Insurance has been,
at times, a very convenient vehicle for money laundering also. Just to
bore (or inform) you : imagine a guy in country X with a strict currency
export provision. He buys a single-premium life insurance policy for a
face value of as much as he can, paying with wire transfer. All his
money, save for a plane ticket out of the country. He arrives where he
can open a bank account. He cancels the insurance policy, costing
nothing at all, and takes the refund in his new country of residence.
Fishy ? Yes. That's why insurance companies are reluctant to make
payments where they hear fraud invoked.
Sorry to take so much of your time. The arbitration WAS NOT ABOUT DOPING.
--
Sandy
- The belief in a relation of cause and effect is a superstition.
Wittgenstein, L
Tractatus logico-philosophicus