May 6, 2011 (Aigle, Switzerland) – In a ruling issued on 2 May 2011, the Brussels Court of Appeal rejected the appeal brought by the rider Iljo Keisse against the initial decision of the Court of Brussels according to which Belgian courts did not have competence to suspend a foreign arbitration ruling, in this case the decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, that had confirmed a sporting suspension of two years of the Belgian rider for doping.

The Court essentially based its decision on the fact that the UCI continued to apply the sporting suspension imposed by CAS outside Belgium after the Court, in an initial ruling of 10 November 2010, had provisionally suspended the CAS ruling.

In fact by virtue of the same international rules that remove all competence from the Belgian courts regarding the suspension of a foreign arbitration decision such as that by CAS, the latter decision continued to have effect outside Belgium, as the UCI had clearly indicated in its conclusions presented to the first judge and the conclusions presented to the Court before the provisional ruling of 10 November 2010.

As the sporting suspension of Mr Keisse continued to apply outside Belgium, it will end on 6 August 2011. The Court considered that it was no longer opportune to issue a ruling on Mr Keisse’s claim and dismissed it, without giving a verdict on its competence.

As a result of its interruption in Belgium from 10 November 2010 until 2 May 2011, the sporting suspension of Mr Keisse in Belgium will conclude on 27 January 2012.

The UCI would like to emphasise that the legal difficulties concerning the territorial application of the suspension of Mr Keisse result from his decision to contest the CAS ruling in another country (in this case his own) than that indicated by international legal agreements. An appeal made in Switzerland would have resulted in a provisional ruling in July or August 2010, which furthermore would have had international rather than national effect.

For its part, the UCI acted in accordance with international legal conventions by virtue of which it respected the World Anti-Doping Code as well as the role and authority of CAS and the equality of treatment of all athletes around the world.