West Indies Players Association (WIPA), has withdrawn its challenge to a High Court ruling, which has cleared the way for the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) to negotiate directly with players.
Notice of WIPA’s withdrawal was filed in the registry of the Court of Appeal, Hall of Justice, in Port-of-Spain on Nov. 20. The decision also means that WIPA will now have to pay the almost one million dollars in legal costs to the WICB, which successfully won the lawsuit.
In dismissing WIPA’s lawsuit in March, which sought to bind the WICB to comply with the October 2005 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) and Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), for all negotiations with players to be approved by the union, Justice Ricky Rahim, rejected WIPA’s claim for US$10m ($64m). The judge found that WIPA’s claim was “grossly exaggerated.” He also ordered WIPA to bear the legal costs of the WICB in the sum of $555,535.
WIPA claimed that the two agreements made the WICB incapable of unilaterally terminating a player’s contract but rather by mutual assent or through a revision of the agreements.
WIPA claimed that the WICB had illegally attempted to unilaterally terminate the agreements, which it asserted could only be terminated by mutual consent, revision of the documents or the dispute resolution procedure contained in the agreements.
