The Court of Arbitration for Sport has upheld an appeal filed by former USA Taekwondo athlete Steven Lopez and coach Jean Lopez ©Getty Images

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has upheld an appeal filed by former American taekwondo athlete Steven Lopez and coach Jean Lopez, lifting all World Taekwondo (WT) suspensions imposed on the pair.

The Lopez brothers were provisionally suspended from the sport and their World Taekwondo Global Membership System licenses revoked following a United States Center for SafeSport investigation which concluded that both had violated SafeSport Code for the US Olympic and Paralympic Movement.

While the findings were overturned in January 2019 and SafeSport withdrew its sanctions, WT decided to maintain disciplinary actions.

A CAS appeal was registered in June and after the arbitration procedure, the CAS panel found that "WT failed to provide convincing evidence that the 2008 Code of Ethics was either published or made available to the appellants."

The brothers had been punished using a copy of the WT Code of Ethics that was not applicable, the CAS ruled.

"The CAS Panel heard evidence and legal submissions related to sexual harassment allegations involving the appellants between 1997 and 2013," a CAS statement read.

Steven Lopez is a two-time Olympic gold medallist ©Getty Images
Steven Lopez is a two-time Olympic gold medallist ©Getty Images

"However, in application of the fundamental legal principle that one cannot be punished for doing something that is not prohibited by law (nulla poena sine lege), and in the absence of any relevant applicable disciplinary or ethics rules implemented or published by WT at the time of the alleged violations, the CAS Panel was not in a position to sanction the appellants, even if the Panel was to assume that they had committed an infraction.

"Indeed, the Panel observed that WT charged the appellants based on its 2011 Code of Ethics, which entered into force on 15 September 2011, but that all relevant incidents for which the appellants were charged allegedly occurred before 15 September 2011 and were therefore not sanctionable on the basis of the 2011 Code of Ethics.

"At the hearing, WT submitted for the first time that a Code of Ethics had been implemented in 2008, a submission that the Panel considered to be inadmissibly, and impermissibly, late.

"In any event, the Panel found that WT failed to provide convincing evidence that the 2008 Code of Ethics was either published or made available to the appellants.

"As a consequence, the CAS Panel decided to uphold the appeal."

Five athletes - Mandy Meloon, Heidi Gilbert, Amber Means, Gabriella Joslin and Kay Poe - filed a lawsuit against Steven and Jean Lopez in 2018.

Jean Lopez had been accused of assaulting Meloon and Gilbert.

insidethegames has approached WT for comment following the CAS verdict on Steven and Jean Lopez.