The Annual Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot is the largest international legal student competition that is held in Vienna (Austria) during the Easter holidays. Every year about 250 universities from 60 countries take part in the contest and more than 650 professional arbitrators, practicing lawyers and law professors assess their performance. In the 17th Moot, approximately 1800 students participated in preparation of written memoranda and in oral hearings in Vienna.
The Moot represents a fictitious arbitration dispute between several companies located in different countries, arising out of the contract for the international sale of goods, governed by the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods of 1980. The arbitration is conducted in accordance with the arbitration clause set forth in the contract, arbitration rules of procedure agreed by the parties, and the UNICITRAL model law on international commercial arbitration of 1985.
At the 18th Moot (2011) the subject-matter of the dispute is the avoidance of a contract for the sales of squid and the reimbursement of damages which resulted from this avoidance. The buyer (claimant) tries to prove that the seller should have delivered the squid of certain size fit for use as bait. The seller (respondent) in turn asserts that it should have supplied the squid fit for human consumption and the buyer in any case failed to notify it within a reasonable time after it should have discovered the defects. The parties agreed that the dispute would be solved under Arbitration Rules of the Chamber of Arbitration of Milan. However the respondent also contests the jurisdiction of the Arbitral Tribunal and alleges that claimant has breached the confidentiality duty of the arbitral proceedings.
The aim of the participants of this competition is to prepare written memoranda for the claimant and for the respondent in support of their legal position as well as to represent the parties in the oral proceedings of the arbitration. The following awards are raffled off in the Moot:
- Pieter Sanders Prize for the best written memorandum for claimant;
- Werner Melis Prize for the best written memorandum for respondent;
- Martin Domke Prize to the best speaking counselor (is bestowed to the participant who received the highest average of points for the oral hearings);
- Frédéric Eisemann Prize to the team that prevails in the final round of the moot.
The Moot organizers are Pace University (New York), Queen Mary University (London), Stockholm University, University of Vienna, Austrian Arbitration Association, Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, Moot Alumni Association, and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). The sponsors of the Moot are the prominent international and regional arbitrational institutions, such as International Chamber of Commerce, London Court of International Arbitration, International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, American Arbitration Association and others.
