As a side note, the Players filed their request for extension of the deadline for the filing of their reply to the motion by electronic mail only (i.e., not signed by an electronic signature in accordance with the Swiss Federal Tribunal Act) and as such their request was considered invalid, while their reply was filed after the deadline expired and was therefore disregarded by the SFT, as was the reply filed by the CAS (at 3.1-3.2).

Before the SFT, the Club first invoked the lack of the jurisdiction of the CAS, to the extent that insolvency proceedings are of a mandatory nature and therefore not arbitrable under Romanian law. The SFT recalled that arbitrability is a condition for the validity of the arbitration agreement and, under Swiss law, includes all disputes of pecuniary nature. Despite the fact that Swiss enforcement law is a matter of public policy, the case at hand involved two football players with pecuniary claims against their former club, thus falling within Art. 177 Swiss LDIP. The SFT also considered as decisive the fact that the Club had become solvent again prior to the issuance of the arbitral award, rendering thus any questions regarding the exclusive state jurisdiction irrelevant (at 4.4).

The plea of violation of res judicata for alleged disregard of the decision of the insolvency administrator and the subsequent withdrawal of the players’ challenge against such decision was swiftly dismissed because it was formulated within the context of the panel’s lack of jurisdiction (and not as part of an alleged violation of procedural public policy) but also as clearly unsubstantiated (at 4.4 in fine).

In the same judgment, the SFT reminded that the double level of jurisdiction is not a matter of procedural public policy and that there is a difference between violation of public policy and arbitrariness, which is only a ground for annulment of an arbitral award in domestic arbitration under the Swiss Code of Civil Procedure (at 5.2).