Students of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law participated at the XV annual Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot, which took place in Vienna, form 15 to 20 March 2008. Our students had a great success advancing to the round of 64 in oral roudns and winning Honorable mention for the Memorandum for Claimant and Honorable mention for the best speaker.

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.

In the tough competition including 203 teams from all over the world, our students managed to advanced to the top 32 teams of the competition. During the qualification rounds our students competed against the teams from the following universities: Monash University (Austrаlia), Loyola LA (USA), South Metodist University (USA) и University of Leicester (UK). Along with the achievement in the oral rounds, on the closing ceremony the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law received 2 honorable mentions: one in the competition for the best individual oralist (Jovana Stevović, whose average grade was higher than 45 in the scale between 25 and 50) and the best Memorandum for Claimant.

The students who represented the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law this year are: Vuk Cucić, Miloš Kuzman, Nikola Marković, Marija Marošan, Ivan Nonković, Milica Novaković, Sanja Panjković, Milan Radonjić, Raško Radovanović, Dina Simonović, Jovana Stevović. Katarina Dolović and Bogdan Gecić have participated in writing of the memoranda. The team was coached by Ass. Prof. Vladimir Pavić and Ass. Milena Đorđević and Uglješsa Grušić.

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: US Steel Serbia, DELTA M, Serbian Railways, Rudnap group, Harrisons solicitors, Moravčević & Vojnović Law Office in cooperation with Schoenherr, Wolf Theiss, CMS, Karanović-Nikolić, Prica and partners, Pireus bank, Foreign Trade Court of Arbitration at the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, The Business Lawyers Association of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade Bar Association and NELT.