Foreword

In Malta in June 1999 the Executive Committee of the European Bridge League decided to publish this special collection of all Appeals Committee decisions, made in the European Championships for Open Teams, Ladies' Teams, Seniors Teams and Ladies' Pairs.

38 decisions were made and all are included in this booklet. Only the most interesting decisions were published in the Daily Bulletin of the championships. All decisions have since been published on the Internet.

Publishing EBL Appeals Committee decisions is not new, but this booklet is. It is the intention of the EBL Executive Committee that through the publishing of the decisions, the EBL will influence the interpretation of the Laws in the right direction. This should support an internal consistency in the decisions of Tournament Directors and Appeals Committees in Europe and hopefully also in other parts of the World.

I will use this opportunity to thank the members of the Appeals Committee in Malta for their great effort and extend a special thanks to Herman De Wael who scribed all the decisions.

Jens Auken
Member of the EBL Executive Committee
Chairman of the Appeals Committee

Statistics of the Appeals Committee

There have been 38 appeals at these championships.

That is a frequency of 0.70 appeals per 1,000 deals played, as compared to 0.58 at the European Pairs Championships at Warsaw earlier this year.

The Open teams took the bulk of the appeals, 30, while the Seniors and Ladies had 4 each.

It should be noted that the Ladies have played a Pairs' championship without a single appeal, and then a Teams competition with only 4 appeals. If you then see the close finish, it is notable that none of the teams in contention found reason to lodge any appeal.

In 23 of the 38 cases, the decision of the Tournament Director was upheld without any change. 9 appeals were deemed without merit.

11 different people served on the diverse Committees, and the size of each Committee was on average 4.6 people.

Herman De Wael (Scribe)

Members of the Appeals Committee:
Jens Auken (Chairman, Denmark), Herman De Wael (Scribe, Belgium), Jean-Claude Beineix (France), Naki Bruni (Italy), Grattan Endicott (Great Britain), Peter Lund (Denmark), Anton Maas (the Netherlands), Krzysztof Martens (Poland). Jaap van der Neut (the Netherlands), Bill Pencharz (Great Britain), Nissan Rand (Israel).

Anton Maas, Naki Bruni, Peter Lund, Jens Auken and Herman De Wael, who sat on more than 80% of the Appeals Committees in Malta.

Appeals (Appealing side first)

01 - OT01 - Poland v Switzerland
02 - OT02 - Portugal v France
03 - OT02 - Denmark v Poland
04 - OT04 - Finland v Israel
05 - OT06 - Portugal v Turkey
06 - OT04 - Great Britain v Poland
07 - OT03 - San Marino v France
08 - OT06 - Romania v Slovenia
09 - OT06 - France v Israel
10 - OT06 - Israel v France
11 - OT08 - Portugal v Russia
12 - OT12 - Switzerland v Netherlands
S1 - OT16 - France v Slovenia
14 - ST08 - Sweden v Great Britain
15 - LT09 - Sweden v the Netherlands
16 - ST10 - Ireland v Sweden
17 - OT18 - Monaco v Lebanon
18 - OT19 - Netherlands v San Marino
19 - ST11 - Italy v Great Britain
20 - OT21 - Monaco v Czech Republic
21 - OT20 - Germany v Monaco
22 - OT20 - Spain v Slovenia
23 - ST17 - Israel v Portugal
24 - OT18 - Italy v Belgium
25 - OT24 - Croatia v Monaco
26 - OT25 - Ireland v Portugal
27 - OT27 - France v Hungary
28 - LT16 - Israel v Sweden
29 - LT16 - Denmark v Iceland
30 - OT29 - Israel v Czech Republic
31 - OT29 - Portugal v Romania
32 - OT30 - Poland v Italy
33 - OT29 - Iceland v Cyprus
34 - OT31 - Croatia v Bulgaria
35 - OT28 - Greece v Liechtenstein
36 - OT33 - France v Cyprus
37 - OT33 - France v Cyprus
38 - OT34 - Italy v Ireland

Statistics:

Tournaments:
Ladies Pairs 0
Open Teams 30
Ladies Teams 4
Senior Teams 4

Decision:
Upheld 23
Adjusted 9
Restored 5
Penalty 1

Keywords: A certain number of keywords are attributed to the appeals, and these are listed below, together with the numbers of the appeals in which they featured:

Acquiescence 27
Alert Procedure 9&10
Card Played 7, 38
Claim 27
Disputed Facts 36
Equity (Law 12C3) 2, 36
Hesitation 1, 4, 5, 6, 11, 16, 26, 30, 32, 34
Inference from Opponent's Action 29, 37
Misbid 15, 18
Misinformation 2, 3, 9&10, 14, 17, 24, 36
Misinformation - No Damage 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 28, 35
Prior Disclosure of System 33
Procedural Penalty S1, 17, 23
Psychic Call 31
Self-Protection 17
Unauthorised Information 8, 12
(see also Hesitation)