As announced some time ago from Neapolitan Club and IMP Bridge Magazine, Fulvio Fantoni and Claudio Nunes have appealed against the sentence of the FIGB (Italian Bridge Federation) Tribunal, issued on March 19, 2016 and published on April 11, 2016.
The appeal mainly focues on some anomalies in the procedure. We can thus summarise the reasons of the appeal:
1) What happened occurred in EBL and WBF events and the FIGB has no jurisdiction over them.
(The alleged violations occurred in two tournaments, the European Championships held in Croatia in 2014 and the World Championshops held in Indonesia in 2013. Neither event has been organised or supervised by the FIGB: They have been organised by the EBL and WBF respectively.)
2) The FIGB did not wait for the outcome of the EBL tribunal proceedings, contrary to what had been requested by the defendant.
(As it is well known, in fact, after receiving the report from the Investigation Committee, the EBL President decided to complain the Fantoni-Nunes’ case to the Disciplinary Commission and the EBL hearing is scheduled for June 1 – 2, 2016.)
3) The Tribunal did not take into account the defensive report and the attachments sent by Fantoni and Nunes.
(In fact, the Tribunal said that the defensive report filed on the 17th of December 2016 was submitted late.)
4) The Tribunal accepted the proofs without checking them.
(The Tribunal did not spot the evident mistakes in the report written by Mr Carlo Totaro, in particular with respect to the number of matches and deals analysed and did not directly view, examine or evaluate the origin, credibility and relevance of the videos and pictures.)
5) Finally, the Tribunal failed to examine, evaluate and take into account the absence of “anomalies” in the play of the accused players and the existence of ‘losing plays’ by them.
More, the Defence has been informed that the Italian Federal Prosecutor, Mr Claudio Brugnatelli, also has filed an appeal against the Federal Tribunal sentence: The Federal Prosecutor asks a life ban or at least a six years ban for each player individually (3 years for EBL event + 3 years for WBF event).
The Appeal Hearing will be held in Milan on May 27, 2016.
Mr Enrique Morera, legal counsel for Fantoni and Nunes, explained this points during his interview with Jan van Cleef (April 26, 2016) and in his statement posted at Bridge Winners (May 16, 2015).
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