3 April
RGSL team participates in the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot
From 3–9 April team of five RGSL students participated in Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot in Vienna, Austria.
Willem C. Vis moot is the largest moot competition for law students in the field of international sales and international arbitration law. 228 teams from all over the world participated in 2008/2009 competition, and it was organized by Pace Law School Institute of International Commercial Law (New York).
The RGSL team was represented by Jevgenija Pavlova, Linda Purenkova, Ruta Mikiškaite, Tamar Kobakhidze and Axel Wahl. Associate from Raidla Lejins & Norcous Maija Volkova coached the team. RGSL highly appreciates and would like to thank “BDO Zelmenis & Liberte”and “Eversheds Bitāns” Law Office, as without their support and contribution team’s participation in the competition would not be possible.
This year the team of Riga Graduate School of Law was opposed by students the following high schools: Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), Stetson University (Florida, USA), Pepperdine University (California, USA) and ILS Law College, Pune University (India). After four debates 64 teams were selected for finals. But still, after heated and equal struggle, the team of the Riga Graduate School of Law did not reach the final.
The moot problem every year is released already in the beginning of October and it consists of correspondence between claimant and respondent, and arbitration institution and arbitral tribunal. All this correspondence is drafted to mirror documents that could actually exist in real life. This year’s problem was based on sale of defective cars, after distributor of these cars went bankrupted. The main task of the claimant was to persuade arbitral tribunal that one of the shareholders of the distributor that also was a producer of these defective cars is liable under sales contract and is bound by arbitration clause in sales contract between purchaser and distributor.
On the basis of the provided documents students had to prepare statement of claim and afterwards, when team received statement of claim prepared by other participating team, answer to this received statement of the claim. When all written documents were circulated, teams started preparation for oral rounds that always take place one week before Eastern in Vienna, Austria. During oral rounds teams are required to represent the interests of either claimant or respondent in improvised arbitral hearings.
Teams are evaluated by highly recognized international sales and international arbitration experts - both practitioners and academics. After pleadings each team member can learn not only general evaluation of the team on written documents, but receive individual feedback on his/her presentation, both on the substance and from the perspective of presentation skills.