The Willem Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot at Edinburgh
Introduction
The University of Edinburgh was very pleased to once more participate in the Willem C Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot in the 2019/20 academic year. The members of the team for the 27th Moot Competition were three LLM students at the University:
- Jackson Neagli;
- Franziska Heim; and
- Marlene Straub.
More details of each of the team members can be found here. The team was coached by Fergus Whyte and Valerie Boehm with the assistance of members of the School of Law and the Scottish legal community.
More details about the team for the coming year and what is involved in participating can be found here.
The Edinburgh Vis Pre-Moot
The 9th Edinburgh Pre-moot was held on the weekend of 7 and 8 March 2019. We are very grateful to all the teams and arbitrators who attended. More details, results and photos can be found here.
The 10th Edinburgh Vis Pre-moot will take place on the weekend of 6 and 7 March 2021. Please save the dates and if you would like to register your interest in participating please contact us.
The 27th Vis Moot
The Willem C Vis Moot, now in its 26th year, is an International Commercial Arbitration Moot taking place annually in Vienna. The Moot is an extremely popular and well established event amongst the international arbitration community. Universities from all over the world compete at this event and there are usually close to 300 teams represented in Vienna. Only a few universities from the United Kingdom compete each year and Edinburgh Law School is proud to be one of them.
The Vis Moot is a hub of social activity with numerous social events including tours of Vienna, goulash dinners, welcome receptions and parties being organised every year by the moot organisers and the moot alumni association. As well as the active social calendar there is also a programme of lectures, seminars and networking events for moot participants, coaches, academics and members of the Vis Moot community during the week. The competition itself takes place over 4 to 5 days typically from the Saturday of the week before Easter until the Thursday of the following week.
Each year the moot organisers develop a problem scenario involving an international sale transaction to which the Vienna Convention on the International Sale of Goods (1980) is applicable and which is subject to international commercial arbitration under the rules of a particular arbitration organisation. Each year a different organisation provides its arbitration rules.
Each year’s problem can, therefore, be expected to provide new and interesting questions both procedural and substantive. The Vis Moot problem for the 26th competition is available from the Vis Moot website.
As part of its team’s preparation Edinburgh Law School organises a Pre-Moot competition for students to practice and obtain practitioner feedback.
Sponsors
We are indebted to our sponsors without whom our event would be impossible to stage. The Edinburgh Vis Pre-Moot is sponsored by the Scottish Arbitration Centre. CMS and the Faculty of Advocates provide sponsorship for the Edinburgh Vis Moot Team and the Edinburgh Vis Pre-Moot.
Over the years, their support has allowed us to host teams from all over the world here in Scotland as well as contributing to the success of the team.
Header photo by: Cristoph Juergens