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06 March 2026
Issue: 8152 / Categories: Legal News , Sports law , Employment , Commercial , Sports litigation , International
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NLJ this week: Mbappé row spotlights ‘ethics bonuses’

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A €60.9m award to Kylian Mbappé has refocused attention on football’s controversial ‘ethics bonus’ clauses. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Estelle Ivanova of Valloni Attorneys at Law examines how such provisions sit within French labour law

These bonuses, tied to conduct on and off the pitch, are lawful in principle—but only if framed as objective remuneration, not disguised penalties. French law prohibits ‘financial penalties’, rendering contrary clauses ‘deemed unwritten’.

The Paris Labour Court stressed that ‘contractual undertakings must be complied with’.

Poor drafting risks recharacterisation or invalidation; sophisticated drafting is now essential in a sport where reputation and revenue are entwined.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Harneys—Maggie Kwok & George Weston

Harneys—Maggie Kwok & George Weston

Harneys senior leadership appointments

Freeths—Keith Browne & Jim Jordan

Freeths—Keith Browne & Jim Jordan

Freeths strengthens London Construction and Engineering practice with two strategic senior hires

Anthony Collins—Laura Moss

Anthony Collins—Laura Moss

Anthony Collins announces strategic hire to deepen skills base in the social business sector

NEWS
Existing defamation law can respond to AI ‘hallucinations’, but allocating responsibility will prove harder where outputs reach users without human intervention
The High Court has upheld a rare successful serious-irregularity challenge after an arbitrator relied on an implied term neither party had advanced
Thirty years after The Future of Law shook a profession still using fax machines, its central forecast looks increasingly less like prophecy and more like description
More than 100 teams from the legal and financial services sectors competed in five sports at the 51st Law Society RFC Festival of Sport earlier this month
Part-time status need only be an effective cause of less favourable treatment, rather than the sole cause, the Supreme Court has held in Augustine v Data Cars
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