Ethics Talk Live: Corruption and Human Rights in Sports – a corporate perspective

Nick has over 30 years’ experience of advising clients in the media, sport and entertainment sectors. He works with a full range of companies, from US studios and international broadcasters to major sports rights holders.

Nick focuses on a broad range of matters including negotiating and structuring complex arrangements for the hosting of major sporting and other events, the exploitation of media rights across all platforms, sponsorship, brand exploitation, event organisation, sports administration, copyright, gambling, and advertising.

Nick is proud to have represented many of the world’s major media, sport and entertainment brands including the Premier League, for whom he has acted for decades (and through whom he was able to meet his childhood hero Brian Clough).

Other examples of his work include helping Discovery Communications with their distribution arrangements in Europe and advising on aspects of the hosting of the London, Rio and Tokyo Olympics, the Glasgow and Birmingham Commonwealth Games, and the Baku European Games.

Prior to joining DLA Piper in 2005, Nick was a partner at a London-based international law firm. He also worked on secondment for the Motion Picture Association of America and Warner Bros.

He is delighted to have been recognised in The Lawyer’s Hot 100 list 2022.

Alison has spent the last two decades consulting to multinational companies on risk, anti-corruption, sustainability, human rights, culture and behavior, stakeholder engagement, ESG, and ethics and compliance.

She is also a senior advisor at sustainability non-profit Business for Social Responsibility, a board member of ESG think tank Preventable Surprises, and an Adjunct Professor at NYU Stern School of Business, where she teaches professional responsibility, leadership and sustainability to MBAs and undergraduates. Prior to joining Ethical Systems, Alison was a managing director at Business for Social Responsibility, running the sustainability management, futures and supply chain practices.

She has also worked at Transparency International, Control Risks, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Fordham Law School. Alison is a 2019-2022 member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Transparency and Anti-Corruption.

Watch out for Alison’s upcoming book for Harvard Business Review Press on how companies can do the right thing in a turbulent world.

André has a long career in international sports. At a young age, he led two major global scientific organisations in sports (ICSSPE, ECSS – The International Council of Sports Science and Physical Education and the European College of Sports Science). He wrote two books on international sports law and governance for the Council of Europe in 1998 and 2004.

André was active in the development of the Macolin Convention (the Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions) and served for several years on the legal commissions of both the IAAF (World Athletics) and the FISU (World University Games).

He is currently serving as the Independent Chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s Signatory Expert Group. This committee is charged with reviewing applications by potential World Anti-Doping Code Signatories and providing opinions and recommendations to WADA’s Leadership Team.