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ESIC Launches ‘Transparency Initiative’ to Bolster Visibility of Investigative Work and Outcomes

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OVERVIEW:                                 

  • ESIC is an integrity body that oversees member events across a variety of different esports titles. ESIC administers (on average) 15-30 investigations concurrently at any one time.
  • Due to ESIC’s current (but resolving) resourcing constraints, it is often limited to functions that are essential to its investigatory activity and therefore has on occasion not held the capacity to provide convenient updates to the public on ongoing matters in a timely manner.
  • Irrespective of resourcing constraints, most of the matters that ESIC is currently investigating are highly sensitive and confidential and publicity about them could not only undermine the investigation itself, but also potentially damage the reputation of innocent parties subsequently found to have not participated in corrupt activity. ESIC therefore exercises a high degree of caution in making any statement about ongoing matters.
  • However, ESIC is aware that the growing public interest in its activities and demand for information to be made available is something that it needs to resolve. It is important that ESIC provide a reliable and proportionate level of insight into the activities it undertakes so as to bolster public confidence in the integrity of esports and of ESIC as its guardian.

Roll out of a Transparency Initiative

Accordingly, ESIC has formulated a ‘Transparency Initiative’

This initiative will begin with a four staged roll-out (Phase 1).

STAGE 1 – PUBLIC MATTER REGISTRY

In order to redeem resourcing that would otherwise need to be dedicated to public relations, media and press, ESIC has centralised reporting for updates on declassified public matters. An investigation is typically declassified for public listing after a third party (usually a party to the investigation or a journalist) has put the matter into the public domain or ESIC has made a public announcement about an investigation for strategic reasons or to enlist public support and information.

Accordingly, ESIC has installed a publicly accessible Matters Register detailing all current publicly disclosable ongoing investigations run by ESIC and the status of those investigations where appropriate. This will include information such as:

  1. Matter Name;
  2. Matter Open Date;
  3. Status of Matter
  4. Number of Updates Publicly Available
  5. Date of Last Update; and
  6. A ‘View’ link which will enable anyone to view the updates on any publicly declassified matter in one location.

Please note that information will continue to be populated and updated on this register over the course of this weekend.

STAGE 2 – PUBLIC SANCTIONS REGISTRY

It is imperative that a single source of truth exists recording all sanctions handed down by ESIC in a public and highly accessible format. Accordingly, ESIC has elected to create a centralised registry for the listing of all sanctions issued by ESIC.

The Public Sanctions Registry will contain information including:

  1. Name of Sanctioned Party;
  2. Sanction Commencement Date;
  3. Sanction Duration;
  4. Sanction End Date;
  5. Sanction Type (e.g. Ban, Betting Offence);
  6. A link to the relevant press release;
  7. Sanction Status (e.g. Active, Expired, Appealed, etc.)

Estimated Implementation Timeline: October 2021

STAGE 3 – PUBLIC APPEALS REGISTRY

ESIC is committed to a completely transparent process when it comes to appeals. In order to do so in a sustainable manner, ESIC has elected to digitise the information for public access so that there is less time and resourcing pressure on ESIC to make constant public statements relating to any update.

The Public Appeals Registry will detail all current appeals received by the Independent Appeals Panel and their respective status. This will include information such as:

  1. Name of Appellant;
  2. Appeal Date;
  3. Decision Appealed (link);
  4. Status of Appeal.

Estimated Implementation Timeline: October 2021

STAGE 4 – PUBLIC APPEALS LIBRARY

In addition to a Public Appeals Registry, ESIC is committed to providing access to the written decisions of the Independent Appeals Panel where permitted to do so (by consent of the parties).

This register will contain each permitted appeal and a link to access the written decision of the Appeals Panel.

Estimated Implementation Timeline: November 2021

FURTHER STEPS

Further to the above, ESIC is presently in the process of expanding its resourcing capabilities in order to allow it to scale beyond the limitations previously, and currently, inhibiting full scalability. This has been an 18 month process which has seen significant progress over the duration of the exercise.

ESIC intends to make various announcements in due course detailing:

  1. Further steps to be taken to increase transparency of ESIC’s operations after the implementation of Phase 1;
  2. Announcements relating to the resourcing of ESIC and its planned capabilities to serve the esports industry well into the future.

The original article can be found here.

Saturday, 21 August 2021