WADA Code 2015 – Some Troubling Proposals

Can I be charged for not reporting someone else’s doping?

• 2.9 Complicity in an Anti-Doping Rule Violation.– Assisting, encouraging,

aiding, abetting, conspiring, covering up or any other type of complicity involving an anti-doping rule violation or any Attempted anti-doping rule violation by another Person.

New Default Sanction = 4 years?

• 10.2.1 A violation involving any Prohibited Method or a Prohibited Substance in the classes of Anabolic Agents, Peptide Hormones, Growth Factors and Related Substances, Hormone and Metabolic Modulators, or Diuretics and Other Masking Agents, shall result in four (4) years Ineligibility unless the Athlete or other Person can establish that the commission of the anti-doping rule violation was neither intentional nor reckless.

4 Year Sanction for Specified Substances?

• 10.2.2 Where an anti-doping rule violation involves a specified substance or a substance not described in Article 10.2.1 nor a specified substance, and where the Anti-Doping Organization can establish that the commission of the anti-doping rule violation was reckless or intentional, then the period of Ineligibility shall be four (4) years.

Further Undercutting of the Purpose of “Specified Substances”

• 10.2.3 Where an anti-doping rule violation involves a specified substance and the Anti-Doping Organization can establish that the commission of the anti-doping rule violation was intentional, the period of Ineligibility shall be four (4) years.

The End of “Substantial Cooperation”?

• 10.2.4 An Athlete or other Person, upon the approval of both WADA and the Anti-Doping Organization with results management responsibility, may be sanctioned with a period of Ineligibility of between four (4) and two (2) years by admitting the anti-doping rule violation as asserted under Article 10.2.1 or 10.2.2 promptly after being confronted with the anti-doping rule violation by an Anti-Doping Organization.

Repayment of Prize Money or Lifetime Suspension? Is This Matuzalem II?

• 10.7.1 Athletes and other Persons shall not be allowed to participate in Competitions until all prize money forfeited under this Article has been repaid, unless fairness requires otherwise.

Indefinite Suspension Part 2?

• 10.12 Payment of CAS Cost Awards.– Athletes and other

Persons shall not be allowed to participate in Competition until any CAS cost awards against them have been paid, unless fairness requires otherwise.

Did CAS Unilaterally Change the Arbitration Agreement?

• R65 Appeals against decisions issued by international federations in disciplinary matters

• R65.1  The present Article R65 is applicable to appeals against decisions which are exclusively of a disciplinary nature and which are rendered by an international federation or sports-body

The Good – A New Contaminated Product Rule

• 10.4.2 Contaminated Products.• Where an Athlete or other Person

can establish No Significant Fault and that the detected Prohibited Substance came from a Contaminated Product, then the period of Ineligibility found in Article 10.2 shall be replaced with the following: First Violation: At a minimum, a reprimand and at a maximum, two (2) years Ineligibility, depending on the Athlete’s or other Person’s degree of Fault.

– But see Definition of Contaminated Product: A product which an Athlete or other Person could not have known contained a Prohibited Substance.