Nottingham Forest Football Club Successful in Application for Recusal of an Arbitrator from a Football Association Regulatory Panel

39 Essex Chambers’ Barrister Kate Grange KC acted for Nottingham Forest Football Club in its recent successful application for the recusal of an arbitrator from a Football Association Regulatory Panel. 

Nottingham Forest FC submitted that a member of a Football Association Appeal Board was insufficiently independent on the grounds of apparent bias.

The Tribunal (chaired by Kim Franklin KC sitting alongside Lord Neuberger and Edwin Glasgow KC) concluded that the test for apparent bias was met after the arbitrator had described Forest’s legal submission in a previous set of disciplinary proceedings as “somewhat hysterical”. The Tribunal concluded that to describe an argument that way was “highly pejorative” because it connoted “serious disapproval of the party and its representatives who advanced the argument”.

The case is an important reminder of the standards to be expected of arbitrators and the importance of the language they choose to use to express themselves.