Italian lawyer Mino Auletta was elected president of the Court Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Thursday, 3 April. Auletta, who has been Acting President of CAS, said by telephone from Monaco that he received a majority of the votes at the meeting of the 19 members of the court's governing body. At least ten votes were needed to win Auletta, who will oversee the appointment of arbitrators for the sports world's top appeal body, has been acting president since the death of Senegalese judge Keba Mbaye last year. He will now fill the role until the end of Mbaye's term in 2010, after which CAS will elect a president for a full four-year term.

The CAS president is required to be impartial in his oversight of the nearly 300 arbitrators who rule on about 200 disputes every year.

The CAS presidency had been vacant since the death of 80-year-old Mbaye, who had been the body's only president since its creation in 1984.