ESIC releases statement regarding fines recalculation

ESIC has released a new statement regarding the outcome of the Independent Appeal Panel's complaint regarding a coaching bug. Guided by the new decision, the Commission recalculated the methodology for assessing violations and presented an updated scoring system.

On September 4, 2020, ESIC announced it was investigating a camera bug abuse. On September 28, 2020, ESIC released a statement notifying the preliminary findings regarding the investigation and pointing out the points of violations and specialists who will be suspended from participation in the championships.

On January 27, 2021, Valve released an update to the RMR system on its website that, among other things, identified and notified the company's position regarding the ESIC investigation. As a result, the developers have developed their own methodology for evaluating violations and a scale for calculating the potential period of suspension from the competition.

Since the publication of the latest sanctions, ESIC has received two appeal requests from trainers Apoka and guerri, represented by lawyer Luis Felipe Maia. The appeals mostly focused on the cumulative effect of the sanctions, exacerbated by subsequent sanctions from Valve.

Although these appeals were filed after the deadline, the ESIC Commissioner used his discretion to allow the late appeals as he agreed that the subsequently reported sanctions from Valve misrepresented the intended effect of the sanctions from ESIC, so they were no longer proportionate and were not within the scope of ESIC's intended actions.

As a result of the appeals, the calculation of penalty points awarded to each offending side has been amended to include consideration of concessions granted by ESIC to coaches, as stated in the September 28, 2020 statement.

In fact, this means that the decision of the Appeal Commission changed the final calculation of penalty points to:

Final Penalty Points = Initial Penalty Points - (Initial Penalty Points x Total Concession Percentage)

As a result of the Appeals Panel's decision, and in order to avoid the need for any further appeals, the ESIC Commissioner, in its sole discretion, applied the results of the Independent Appeals Panel's decision to the remaining infringing parties identified in ESIC's September 28, 2020 filing.

As a result, ESIC passed the results on to Valve in the hope that the company would adjust its sanctions to match the recalculation, but Valve's initial response indicates that they will not make that adjustment. While this is a Valve issue, ESIC has asked Valve to reconsider its position.