CAS rules against local body again

By Kayon Raynor

Olympic and World Championship medalists Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson have had their 18 month drug bans reduced to six months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, CAS.

The ruling comes six days after the sprinters’ appeal took place in New York on July 7 and 8.

“The CAS decided to reduce their period of ineligibility to 6 months, which has been already served. The athletes were already free to compete since 18 June 2014 after the CAS had granted a stay of the decisions of the Jamaica Anti-doping Disciplinary Panel of 8 and 10 April 2014,” A releae from CAS said Monday morning.

“Thank you to the Court of Arbitration for Sports,” tweeted Asafa Powell. “Finally this weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Justice has been served. Now let’s run,” Powell added.

Sherone Simpson was equally happy: “I fee total relief and that we have been finally vindicated,” Simpson reacted. “We both knew that we had done all we could to ensure the supplement was okay before taking it. Our actions were not intentional and CAS has recognised that. I a, truly thankful,” Simpson added.

The former training partners who were represented by American attorney Paul Green, had argued that the offense committed is minor and requested that the suspensions be reduced to 3 months.

Powell, who has run a record 81 sub-10s and Simpson, each tested positive for the stimulant Oxilofrine on June 21, 2013 at the Jamaican senior trials.

The Jamaica Anti-doping Disciplinary Panel suspended the athletes for 18 months in April, backdated to Jun 21, 2013 to end December 20 this year.

This is the second time that CAS has reduced doping suspensions imposed by the Jamaica Anti-doping Disciplinary panel in the last three months.

The Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission’s Executive Director Carey Brown responded: “We see and note the ruling by CAS and we will abide by the ruling,” Brown told RJR Sports Online.

On May 5, CAS sliced  18 months from a six year ban imposed on Jamaican 400m-runner Dominique Blake which was retroactive to July 1, 2012.  

CAS had previously dismissed a two-year ban imposed by the IAAF and Jamaica Athletics Administration Association (JAAA) on two-time Olympic 200m gold medallist Veronica Campbell Brown in February.

The JAAA’s President Dr. Warren Blake also responded.

“The (JADCO) disciplinary committee will have to look at the ruling and hopefully learn from the rulings and judgements,” Dr. Blake said. He continued:  “And use that to decide how to proceed if there are any future cases.”

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CAS rules against local body again

DPP rules that Constable accused of trying to kill girlfriend be charged

The Director of  Public Prosecutions (DPP) has ruled that charges be laid against a Constable, who is accused of  trying to kill his girlfriend.

A senior investigator told RJR News that the policeman will be charged on Wednesday and taken before the Spanish Town Criminal Court.

He’s facing charges of  attempted murder, wounding, assault and rape.    

The policeman, who is attached to the St. Thomas Police Division, was recently taken into custody following allegations that he tried to kill his girlfriend . It’s reported that the Constable invited his girlfriend on a date.

He allegedly took her to a secluded area in the central parish of St. Catherine and proceeded to beat her.

During the assault, it’s alleged that he also set fire to her dress as she begged for her life. Constable ended the assault and took her home.

She reported the incident the following day and the Constable was taken into custody.

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DPP rules that Constable accused of trying to kill girlfriend be charged

Spanish judge rules Messi should not post bail

Sport

Thursday, September 05, 2013

MADRID, Spain (AP) — A Spanish court has declined a request by the State Agency for Tax Administration to set bail for Lionel Messi and his father in a case of alleged tax fraud after ruling that a payment made satisfied the case’s legal requirements.In a ruling published yesterday, a Catalan court says that a payment of more than 5 million euros (US$6.6 million) made by Jorge Horacio Messi, the Barcelona star’s father, made it unlikely that either Messi or his father would withhold funds “during the legal process of a pending tax fraud trial”.The complaint, originally lodged by Raquel Amado, a state prosecutor for the northeastern region of Catalonia, alleged Messi tried to conceal the extent of his earnings and he owes 4 million euros (US$5.3 million) in back taxes.

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Spanish judge rules Messi should not post bail

Obama urges regulators to enact Wall Street rules

WASHINGTON — THREE years after President Barack Obama signed a sweeping overhaul of lending and high-finance rules, execution of the law is behind schedule with scores of regulations yet to be written, let alone enforced. Meeting privately with America’s top financial regulators on Monday, Obama prodded them to act more swiftly.

The president’s push comes as the five-year anniversary of the nation’s financial near-meltdown approaches. The law when passed in 2010 was considered a milestone in Obama’s presidency, a robust response to the crisis, which led to a massive government bailout to stabilise the financial markets.But the slow pace of implementation has prompted administration concern that banks could still pose potentially calamitous risks to the economy and to taxpayers. Obama hoped to convey “the sense of urgency that he feels”, spokesman Josh Earnest said before the president convened the meeting with the eight independent regulators in the White House Roosevelt Room.Lehman Brothers collapsed into bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, and the administration has wanted to use that dubious milestone to look back on the lessons of the crisis and progress so far to prevent a recurrence. In a statement at the conclusion of the meeting, the White House said Obama commended the regulators for their work “but stressed the need to expeditiously finish implementing the critical remaining portions of Wall Street reform to ensure we are able to prevent the type of financial harm that led to the Great Recession from ever happening again”.Not everyone feels that way about the law, known as Dodd-Frank after its Democratic sponsors, Representative Barney Frank and Sen Christopher Dodd.Republican House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, an early opponent of Dodd-Frank, dismissed Obama’s meeting with the regulators, saying, “Much like Obamacare, Dodd-Frank is an incomprehensively complex piece of legislation that is harmful to our floundering economy and in dire need of repeal.”Three years after passage, many other Republican lawmakers also see the law as more negative than positive.The law set up a council of regulators to be on the lookout for risks across the finance system. It also created an independent consumer financial protection bureau within the Federal Reserve to write and enforce new regulations covering lending and credit. And it placed shadow financial markets that previously escaped the oversight of regulators under new scrutiny, giving the government new powers to break up companies that regulators believe threaten the economy.But because of the complexity of the industry, the law gave regulators extended time to write the new rules that would enforce its provisions.So far, regulators have missed 60 per cent of the rule-making deadlines, according to an analysis by the law firm of Davis Polk, which has been tracking progress on the bill. Even so, the rules are so complicated, that the ones already written have filled about 13,800 pages of regulations, compared to the 848 pages it took to write the law itself.“I would have to give it a mediocre grade at this point,” said Sheila Bair, the former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. “Most of the rules have not been finalised. A lot of them haven’t even been proposed yet. When some of the rules have been proposed, they’re highly complicated, they’re riddled with exceptions, they’re watered down.”Dennis Kelleher, president, Better Markets Inc, a bank watchdog group, said Obama needs to hold monthly meetings with regulators and fight for more money for the financial regulators to do their job.“Only that level of consistent presidential leadership and involvement will turn the tide against Wall Street’s relentless attacks, which is what has killed, weakened and delayed so much of financial reform,” Kelleher said.A key goal of the legislation was to prevent a rebuilding of a financial system that would permit banks to become so huge and intertwined that they would be “too big to fail”. But America’s top banks today are bigger than they were in 2008. A key proposal in the law would restrict banks from trading for their own profit, a practice known as proprietary trading. That rule, named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, has yet to take effect and the current proposal has been weakened from what the law initially envisioned.Annette Nazareth, a former Securities and Exchange commissioner now a partner at Davis Polk, said that when it comes to the Volcker rule, the law requires that various regulators write a single rule that applies to all the regulated financial entities. “So to some extent it’s not surprising that it has taken longer when they have had to reach consensus on some very tough issues,” she said.Overall, she added, “we are in a better position than we were before the financial crisis.” She said banks have stronger capital positions, regulators are more aggressive and failing banks can be dismantled in ways they couldn’t before. “We have the building blocks for a better, more stable financial system.”Some central elements of the law have fallen into place.The Senate last month confirmed Richard Cordray as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created by the law. Republicans had been blocking his confirmation and demanding broad changes in how the bureau was configured and how it obtained its finances. But a number of Senate Republicans withdrew their opposition, putting Cordray in place and removing one element of uncertainty that had clouded the bureau’s work.The Federal Reserve last month raised the amount of capital that big banks must hold to reduce the threat they might pose to the broader financial system. The requirements, which meet international standards agreed to after the downturn, have met some resistance from financial institutions as being too high, but have also been criticised for not being high enough.A Wall Street sign is seen at an entrance to the New York Stock Exchange. Three years after President Barack Obama signed a sweeping overhaul of lending and high-finance rules, implementation of the law is behind schedule with scores of regulations yet to be written, let alone enforced. (PHOTO: AP)

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Obama urges regulators to enact Wall Street rules

INDECOM has power to arrest and charge, Court rules

Latest News

Wednesday, July 31, 2013 | 7:07 AM

KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) has the power of arrest and charge, a judgment handed down in the Constitutional Court said Tuesday morning.The judgment further states there is no requirement for a ruling from the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) before an officer is arrested and charged, and that powers possessed by the Commission to arrest and initiate prosecution does not undermine the DPP.INDECOM was established to investigate shootings by the Jamaica Constabulary Force and the Jamaica Defence Force.The ruling is a major victory for INDECOM in the matter brought before the Courts by the Jamaica Police Federation (JPF), the Police Officers’ Association, the Special Constabulary Force Association, and the United District Constables’ Association. The JPF and police representative bodies sought a declaration as to whether or not the Commission had the powers to arrest, charge and to initiate prosecutions with or without a ruling from the DPP. The court, comprising Justice Horace Marsh, Justice Lennox Campbell and Justice David Fraser, handed down their judgment in the Constitutional Court which held that the Commission’s staff has by virtue of common law and statue, the power to arrest, charge and initiate prosecution. The statutory power stems from Section 20 of the INDECOM Act which grants like powers, authorities and privileges to the Commissioner and his investigative staff as those given by law to a constable. Like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/jamaicaobserverFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/JamaicaObserver

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INDECOM has power to arrest and charge, Court rules