The XIV annual Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot took place form 28 March to 06 April 2007 in Vienna. Our students had a great success winning Frédéric Eisemann Award, in the tough competition including 177 teams from 51 countries all over the world!

The Willem C. Vis Moot consists in solving a hypothetical problem dealing with arbitration and international sale of goods. The Moot consists of two parts. The first one is preparation and submission of written memoranda prior to the oral hearings. There are two memoranda to be written: one for the Claimant, the other for the Respondent. The writing of these memoranda usually takes about five months. The second one is presentation of oral arguments before a three-member arbitration panel. During the qualification rounds each team has four hearings, appearing both on behalf of claimant and respondent for two times. At each hearing, each speaker is graded by each of the three arbitrators. In the end of the fourth day of qualifications, each team has 24 grades and the ranking list of all the participating teams is drawn.

During the qualification rounds our students competed against the teams from the following universities: Heidelberg University (Germany), Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles (USA), Syracuse University (USA), Faculty of Law Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand). In the elimination rounds, our students met with the teams of Murdoch Law School (round of 32), New York University School of Law (round of 16) and University of Ottawa (round of 8). Finally, our students pleaded against University of Zagreb. According to the reaction from the audience, our team had better chance than the opponent, but unfortunatelly Arbitral Tribunal did not share the same opinion and University of Zagreb advanced to the final. However, our student Dragana Jandrić was named as the best oralist in that pleading.

Our faculty was represented by: Branka Babović, Miloš Bingulac, Ksenija Boreta, Olga Cvetković, Dragana Jandrić, Marko Jovanović, Marija Marošan, Nataša Lalatović, Aleksandar Ugljevarević, while Miroslav Kamel, Branislav Milutinović, Jovana Mitić, Milica Pešterić and Jugoslava Stojanović have participated in writing of the memoranda. The team was coached by Ass. Prof. Vladimir Pavić and Ass. Milena Milutinović.

The University of Belgrade Faculty of Law uses this opportunity to express gratitude to all the institutions that helped the preparation of our students through their generous donations. Apart from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law, the pool of this year’s sponsors consists of: DELTA M, Serbian Railways, Foreign Trade Court of Arbitration at the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, law offices Karanović-Nikolić, Moravčević, Vojnović and Zdravković, Wolf Theiss, CMS Reich Rohrwig Hasche, US Steel Serbia, TIGAR A.D, MK Commerce, Raiffeisen bank, Sky technologies, Wiener Stadtische, The Business Lawyers Association of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade Bar Association, Chamber of commerce in Belgrade.