Grandmaster Peter Heine Nielsen, who opposed Arkady Dvorkovich in the 2022 FIDE elections, informed the FIDE office of a potential conflict of interest, involving the FIDE Ethics Committee Chairman Francois Strydom, due to his connections to the Russian Law Firm SILA Lawyers.
Peter Heine Nielsen’s announcement is below.
The Sila Academy announced Francois Strydom as a professor on the 25th of June 2024, on the Russian legal webpage http://prado.ru
SILA International Lawyers have a long history of representing various Russian sports entities. Some of their most prominent recent cases include representing the Football Union of Russia, the Table Tennis Federation of Russia, the Russian Weightlifting Federation etc.
Additionally, SILA International Lawyers have been long-time partners of the International Boxing Association (โIBAโ), led by Russian Umar Kremlev. Who suspended Ukraine’s membership, and secured Gazprom, the Russian state-owned energy company, as the IBA’s exclusive sponsor.
Sila Lawyers is a FIDE partner since 2019 and have regularly represented FIDEยดs interest e.g. in cases before CAS.
SILA lawyers also have represented FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich personally, including in the famous 2018 election bribery case in Ethics, where Strydom-chaired EDC and again decided the case in favour of Dvorkovich.
According to the FIDE Charter Mr. Strydom has an obligation to declare his interest as professor at SILA Law Academy, but has to our knowledge failed to do so. We only found out about his affiliation by chance very recently.
We see it as an obvious potential conflict of interest that the chair of the Ethics Committee is affiliated to SILA Lawyers, and chaired a case which could set a precedent on a subject of immense relevance for Russian Sports Federations which SILA specialises in representing.
We want to point out that based on their papers submitted, it is obvious that the Chess Federation of Russia and FIDE President Dvorkovich has used the same law firm. We find it possible that it could be SILA Lawyers, Russiaยดs leading expertise on sports law.
Today we have passed this information on to the FIDE Office and the FIDE Ethics Commission, and asked Mr. Strydom to recuse himself from the case, and for the verdict to be reconsidered.
Norwegian Chess Federation will reject Kyrgyz Chess Federation proposal
FIDE in Risk of Losing IOC Recognition
Ukrainian players asking FIDE to remove Kyrgyz Federation proposal from the Assembly Agenda
