LEGAL ASPECTS OF THE COVID­19 PANDEMIC AND IMPACT ON THE PROCEEDINGS BEFORE BASKETBALL ARBITRAL TRIBUNAL (BAT)

BAJOVIĆ Uroš (Pravni fakultet Univerziteta u Beogradu), bajovicuros@hotmail.com

The coronavirus global pandemic has endangered basketball as a professional sport. Contractual Obligations have been shaded by the uncertainty of the global situation, and in that sense, many questions arose. The Basketball Arbitral Tribunal offered some answers to the situation quickly and paved some directions. The Basketball Arbitral Tribunal is an international arbitration body formed to resolve contractual disputes arising in the basketball sports industry. The BAT is already a significantly celebrated arbitration that has given a great contribution to the regulation of legal relations in basketball as a professional sport. New circumstances in the form of a global Covid-19 pandemic have put this arbitration to another important test, and all the results of the work and the solutions offered in the BAT Covid-19 Guidelines are still subject to different opinions and interpretations. The BAT responded to the situation by publishing the BAT Covid-19 Guidelines, which are the main focus of this article. The effects of the BAT before the pandemic are indisputable, and most often its values are described through fast, efficient and safe dispute resolution with simple BAT rules of arbitration, which imply the existence of solutions that speed up and simplify the procedure, all built around many factors. Before the global coronavirus pandemic, a respectable practice in resolving disputes was built, and a similar practice was continued based on the use of instructions published in the first two months of the pandemic.

Keywords: Basketball Arbitral Tribunal, BAT Covid-19 Guidelines, International Basketball Federation, BAT Arbitration Rules, ECA and ELPA Agreement