Addressing the Assembly, FIA President Jean Todt highlighted the difficulties posed by the global health pandemic and saluted the responsiveness, resilience and spirit of innovation shown by the FIA and its Member Organisations during challenging times.

“Since the beginning of the health crisis, adaptability and creativity have been at the heart of our actions at the FIA. Faced with this situation, our aim has been clear: to support you using all the means at our disposal, and to be able to do so, we had to preserve our ecosystem, to ensure the rapid and efficient return of our FIA activities and finally, to make sure the sport could restart as soon as possible. And we made it.

“This health emergency has reminded us of the reality that we had for the most part forgotten: our vulnerability and the fragility of the human condition. This pushes us to work even more closely together to help each other overcome the difficulties 2020 has imposed on us.”

During today’s Annual General Assembly meeting, the following decisions were taken:

Amendments to the FIA Statutes
A number of amendments to the FIA Statutes were approved. The main changes included:
 
Compliance with WADA obligations
The Assembly ratified a proposal to amend the Statutes to clearly recognise the full scope of the FIA’s obligations as a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Program (which includes the World Anti-Doping Code, the ISCCS, Models of Best Practice and Guidelines) and to fully provide clear authority to the FIA to enforce these obligations.
 
Update of the FIA Missions and Values
Following the approval, during the 2019 General Assembly, of reframed Missions and Values of the Federation defined in consultation with Member Clubs, the Assembly today agreed to accentuate the FIA’s commitment to ‘human rights’, a notion according to which every human being possesses universal and inalienable rights, regardless of the law in force in the State or group of States in which she or he finds herself or himself, regardless of local customs linked to ethnicity, nationality or religion.
 
In line with the Missions and Values, the Assembly also ratified an amendment to the Statutes to state that: “the aim of the FIA shall be to establish a union between its membership with a view to encouraging and supporting a responsible concern for environmental issues and promoting sustainable development in its activities.”
 
Affiliation procedure – ASNs / ACNs
The FIA Statutes previously set out as a requirement for affiliation a minimum of three years of permanent activity in motor sport for ASNs and ACNs. In view of the number of exceptions to this principle over the last two years, the Assembly agreed to provide flexibility, in the Statutes, for the affiliation of Clubs with sporting competence only, as well as for Clubs that have been delegated the sporting power in order:

• Not to disrupt the exercise of motor sport activities in a given country;
• To allow a better and faster development of motor sport in certain countries where the FIA is not represented.

Gender representation on World Motor Sport Council and Senate
The Assembly agreed to clarify the Statutes’ explicit recognition of the importance of achieving a more balanced representation of gender and race, and creating a more diverse and inclusive culture (separate proposal to amend the Statutes), by ensuring better representation between men and women within the World Motor Sport Council and the Senate.
 
The Assembly agreed to modify composition of the World Motor Sport Council by stipulating that it includes at least three members of each gender from among the Vice-Presidents for Sport and the members elected under Article 9.5 ii) of the Statutes.
 
It was further agreed to modify the internal regulations of the FIA Women in Motorsport Commission to provide for a woman to chair it. The President of the Commission is by right a member of the World Motor Sport Council.
 
With regard to the Senate, the Assembly approved modification of its composition to include at least one member of each gender among:

• The four members elected by the WCAMT
• The four members elected by the WMSC
• The four members proposed by the FIA President.

International Tribunal and International Court of Appeal
The following amendments were made to the FIA Judicial and Disciplinary rules:
 
Extension of the International Tribunal’s jurisdiction to settlement agreements
The FIA Judicial and Disciplinary Rules provide that a disciplinary inquiry may be terminated if the parties enter into a settlement agreement. However, it did not provide a mechanism for the enforcement of settlement agreements. The Assembly therefore agreed to extend the jurisdiction of the International Tribunal to encompass any failure by a party to comply with the terms of a settlement agreement.
 
Change in the jurisdiction of the International Court of Appeal
The Assembly approved the extension of the ICA’s exclusive jurisdiction over any appeals against Stewards’ decision concerning FIA Championships, Cups, Trophies, Challenges and Series, in order to apply the same judicial process to any FIA-branded Championships, Cups, etc.
 
Extension of the competence of the International Court of Appeal with regard to arbitration
The Assembly agreed to extend the ICA’s competence with regard to arbitration to:

• Disputes of contractual nature;
• Disputes to which the FIA and any other third party may be a party.

International Historical Commission
The Assembly recognised the Senate’s appointment to the position as Chairman of this Commission of:

 
Ethics Committee

Two new members of the FIA Ethics Committee were elected at the General Assembly:

Cost Cap Adjudication Panel
In preparation for the launch of the Formula 1 Cost Cap in 2021, the Assembly elected the following judges to the Cost Cap Adjudication Panel. The new judges shall be nominated for four years (2021-2024).
 

Since the minimum number of elected judges (6) will not be reached, and upon the proposal of the World Motor Sport Council, the General Assembly gave a mandate to the Council to elect in 2021 the missing judges of the Cost Cap Adjudication Panel.

 
Replacement of Member of the World Motor Sport Council

The Assembly today elected the following to the WMSC in place of Juhani Pakari (AKK Finland) who has stepped down:

 
Amendments to the FIA International Sporting Code
The Assembly agreed to several amendments to the International Sporting Code, including the following:

• Introduction of a safeguard clause: Under the standard amendment procedure set forth in the International Sporting Code (Article 18.2 of the ISC), changes to 2021 FIA Regulations need to be published before 30 June 2020 (if pertaining to the Technical Regulations, Appendices J or K to the ISC); or at the latest on the opening date for entry applications for the Championship concerned (if pertaining to the Sporting Rules and other Regulations). Shorter notice periods are provided for if the changes relate to safety or with the unanimous consent of all teams. However, in light of the disruption caused by the COVID-19 crisis, the Assembly agreed to the amendment of the ISC to make it possible for the FIA, under certain exceptional circumstances, to modify the FIA Regulations with a shorter notice period with the agreement of the majority of the competitors properly.
• Circuit national championships: The Assembly approved an amendment to the ISC allowing for an extension of the exception that exists for an ASN lacking karting infrastructure to rely on national championship competitions in neighbouring countries to organise its own national karting championship to other disciplines, provided they require events to be held on permanent circuits (e.g. Sprint or Endurance GT or Touring cars, Trucks, Rallycross, Autocross). Competitions such as Rally, Cross-Country Rally or Hill Climb could not benefit from this exception, as these disciplines do not require specific permanent infrastructures.

New Members of the FIA

The FIA is proud to enlarge its membership and international representation by welcoming the following organisations into its structure:

 
Definitive affiliation of provisionally affiliated Clubs
 

Change of Competence 
 

Change of Status
 

Honorary Member
It is with pleasure that the General Assembly awards Honorary status to the following Member:
 

Date of next meeting

The 2021 FIA Annual General Assembly and Prize Giving Ceremony will take place on 17 December 2021 in Paris.