In the coming weeks, FIS Newsflash will feature ‘Questions and Answers’ with people involved in the FIS family. First up is Christopher Moore, Chairman of the FIS Legal and Safety Committee.

How did you get involved with FIS?

I am a lawyer and have been practicing since 1981 in Ottawa, Ontario (CAN).

It was in 1980 when I got involved in Freestyle Skiing through a very good friend of mine. The next step was to attend events as a Technical Delegate for Freestyle Skiing. I have worked at many World Championships and Olympic Winter Games since.

Through that experience and my profession, I have the legal and sport backgrounds.

In 2000, I was nominated as the Canadian representative on FIS’ Legal and Safety Committee, became Vice Chair in 2008, and was appointed Chairman in 2014 by the FIS Council.

How does the Legal and Safety Committee operate?

There are 19 members and four honorary members on our Committee. It is largely made up of lawyers, but a purely legal background is not necessary as safety is another important part of our mandate. From time to time we have members of the FIS Medical Committee sitting in on our meetings to discuss matters of medical nature.

Outside of the meetings we discuss by email and have provided an input and resolved questions by that means.

What are the major topics on your agenda at present?

We currently deal with topics such as the new Betting and Anti-Corruption Violation Rules and the situation involving Competition Equipment Committee recommendations that may or may not have legal implications, as well as ensuring that FIS’ ethics procedure is properly in place.

Furthermore, in order to be a resource to each other within the Committee, we often discuss about what has happened in our countries in terms of skiing or snowboarding legal issues. We often find similarities between the countries. One of the biggest issues is negligence and lawsuits involving injuries and accidents in ski areas. The 10 Rules of FIS come into play here.

I also sit on FIS’ Injury Surveillance System Steering Committee and if there are concerns of legal nature I bring these to the Legal and Safety Committee to discuss.

A final word?

The Legal and Safety Committee provides information to all of the FIS Disciplines as well as the other Committees and we are available to discuss things of legal nature if they arise. We want to make sure that we are beneficial to the whole organisation and we look forward to being helpful.

Source: fis-ski.com