Past Events

In July 2012, the International Court of Arbitration for Sport (ICAS) and the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA) entered into agreement entitling CRCICA to host the first Alternative Hearing Centre (AHC) for the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Africa. CRCICA-hosted CAS AHC is the fourth all over the world. The other three AHCs are in Malaysia, China and United Arab Emirates. "The presence of CAS in the region will simplify the procedures as the parties will no longer need to travel to the CAS headquarters in Switzerland to defend their cases," said Mr. Mathew Reeb, CAS Secretary General. However, all AHCs all over the world are only seats for CAS Hearings without any liabilities to get involved in neither the procedural nor the substantive aspects of the dispute. In implementation of the Agreement, CRCICA hosted the first CAS hearing session on 27 March 2013. The case in question involved the official agent of players of a popular sport, an African Federation of the same sport and a well known player. Over couples of hours, the hearing remained on live broadcasting to Lausanne of Switzerland through CRCICA's video conferencing facility. Upon the completion of the hearing, CRCICA received formal thanks and acknowledgement from the CAS Secretariat for "the precious help in the organization of the hearing". The institutional cooperation between CRCICA and CAS is expected to ensure the status of CRCICA as an international arbitral organization administrating many trade and investment disputes in addition to a growing number of sports related disputes during the last years. It is also foreseen to have a future positive impact on the functioning and accessibility of sports arbitration procedures in a region having thriving sport practices both qualitatively and quantitatively. However, their resulting disputes lack the required paralleled development of alternative means for the settlement of sports disputes especially sports arbitration and mediation.  

On 5 March 2013, Counsellor Mahmoud Fahmy, Former President of the Capital Market Authority and the Investment Authority - gave a lecture on "Arbitration in Disputes of Direct and Indirect Investments". The lecture covered various ways of solving investment disputes by arbitration under the Investment Law No. 8 of 1997 and the Capital Market Law No. 95 of 1992. Lively exchange of views and comments took place between the speaker and attendees.  

On 6 February 2013, Judge Mohamed Amin ELMahdy, Former President, Egyptian State Council, delivered a lecture on "Anti-Corruption Agreement and its Impact on Arbitration". The topic relates to the importance of the UN Convention against corruption and its relevancy and potential impact on arbitration. The role of the arbitrator in fighting corruption was also discussed with special emphasis on the duties of international arbitral tribunals in this respect.  

On 2 January 2013, Dr. Mohamed Abdel Raouf, CRCICA Director, delivered a speech on "The Practice of Investment Treaty Arbitration before the ICSID: The Egyptian Experience." The lecture covered the lessons of the past learned from ICSID's case law involving Egypt with respect to both jurisdictional and substantive issues. The conclusion included some perspectives for the future. The lecture was followed by a lively discussion involving eminent legal figures from both the private and the public sectors.  

The Wednesday One Seminar Tradition was revived on 5 December 2012, by an interesting talk on "The Determination of the Law Applicable to the Merits of the Dispute: The Arbitral and Judicial Case Law." The speech was delivered by Dr. Hesham Sadek, Professor of Private International Law, Faculty of Law, Alexandria University and Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.