Swiss Federal Supreme Court Judgment of A. v. B. of 22 October 2025
Request for Revision of a CAS Award (CAS 2018/O/5735) of 8 August 2019
A professional football player (the Player) sought the revision of a CAS award rendered on 8 August 2019, by which he had been ordered to pay an agent (the Agent) approximately EUR 84,900 in commission. The CAS had accepted that the parties were bound by a representation agreement containing an arbitration clause in favour of CAS and had rejected the Player’s allegations that the underlying contracts and related email evidence were forged. The award was therefore based on the existence and validity of contractual documents allegedly signed and transmitted by the Player.
Following the CAS award, the Player initiated criminal proceedings in Switzerland against the Agent. These proceedings resulted in final criminal judgments establishing that the Agent had indeed committed forgery and fraud by fabricating the representation contracts and forging the email purportedly sent by the Player. Swiss criminal courts found, on the basis of expert handwriting and IT evidence, that the signatures had been copied and pasted and that the email relied upon before CAS had been entirely fabricated, with the aim of misleading the arbitral tribunal and obtaining an undue commission. These findings were definitively confirmed by the SFT in criminal matters (a 4.1.2).
Relying on the final decision, the Player filed a request for revision before the SFT pursuant to Art. 190a para. 1 (b) PILA (in force since 2021), arguing that the CAS award had been influenced to his detriment by criminal conduct. He submitted that the falsified contracts and fabricated email were decisive for the arbitral tribunal’s jurisdiction and for the outcome of the case, and that the causal link required by Art. 190a para. 1 (b) PILA was clearly established.
The SFT upheld the request for revision, holding that the CAS award had indeed been directly influenced by the Agent’s criminal acts. While rejecting the argument that the award was absolutely null (nullité absolue), which can be invoked at any time, the SFT found that all conditions for revision were met. It therefore annulled the CAS award in its entirety and remitted the case to CAS for a new decision.
This judgment is particularly noteworthy given the exceptional nature of revision proceedings in international arbitration. Requests for revision are rarely admitted, reflecting the SFT’s consistently restrictive approach (“une arme à manier avec prudence”) as a more extended use would endanger legal certainty and the finality of arbitral awards (cf. also the Valieva Judgment, SFT 4A_654/2024 of 8 October 2025). The decision illustrates that, in truly extraordinary circumstances, the system provides an effective corrective mechanism where an arbitral award has been decisively influenced by proven criminal conduct.
