Top law authority warns of difficulties faced in reclaiming prizemoney from Aquanita scandal
A top law authority has warned the pursuit of an estimated $2 million in prizemoney from the Aquanita racing scandal has a variety of challenges, with Racing Victoria facing three big obstacles.
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A leading sports law authority predicts Racing Victoria’s move to potentially disqualify 81 horses snared in the Aquanita doping scandal will be globally monitored.
Melbourne Law School’s Professor Jack Anderson says while it might be difficult for RV to “claw back” prizemoney from owners whose horses were allegedly doped in the Aquanita scheme, the action will have broad ramifications.
“Many racing codes, and sports organisations globally, will be watching whether and how Racing Victoria approaches this matter,” Anderson said.
“To be fair to Racing Victoria, unlike many sports who talk tough on financially pursuing those accused of cheating but rarely act, RV’s integrity unit continues to think and act innovatively about how this might actually be done for the betterment of the sport in the long term.”
Anderson warned the pursuit of an estimated $2 million in prizemoney has a variety of challenges.
“It could, of course, be difficult to claw back the money,” Anderson said.
“First, to find it; second, possibly, to disentangle it from other funds; and third it may be in a foreign jurisdiction.
“That being said, and depending on RV’s rules, a key issue with forfeited prize winnings is that if it remains outstanding, a person’s right to compete in, as in re-enter, the sport in Victoria may be affected until it is finally settled.”
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Anderson said the World Anti-Doping Agency had long considered “forfeiting prize money and imposing financial penalties” as a “means of stepping up the fight against doping in sport globally.”
“The new 2021 World Anti-Doping Code has beefed up its provisions on both,” he said.
“In theory, reclaiming prize winnings won by illicit means has always been part of the armoury of all anti-doping agencies in sport.
“The problem has always been how to make it work in a practical sense.
“In athletics you may have lost a race to an athlete later found to have doped but how in a practical sense do you pursue a legal case against that athlete if say you are based in Australia and they are based in Russia or wherever?
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“In athletics, some of the bigger city marathons have experimented with staggering the payments of prize winnings so that if doping is found retrospectively, they can keep the balance of the money.
“Jurisdictional and legal issues mean however, that, depending on the facts, more can be spent in trying to obtain the money than the value of the prize winnings themselves.”
Anderson said the “issue of clawing back money is in many ways linked to Lance Armstrong’s fall after he was legally pursued by sponsors on the grounds that he had misled them as to his achievements and methods while winning seven Tours de France.”