In a case that has been picked up by the national news media, Stockwoods lawyers Patricia Latimer and Justin Safayeni successfully represented the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport in arbitration proceedings before the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada’s Doping Tribunal. Before the Tribunal, the athlete, an elite bobsledder, admitted that he had violated an anti-doping rule by ingesting a banned substance, but argued that his sentence should be reduced from the standard two year suspension because the vitamin supplements containing the banned substance had allegedly been tampered with by an acquaintance without his knowledge. The CCES argued in favour of a two year suspension, relying on the lab test results of the athlete’s supplements and pointing to the fact that much of the evidence relied upon by the athlete was unreliable. In its final decision, the Tribunal accepted the position of the CCES and imposed a two year suspension on the athlete.
