After winning the Pre-Moot in Milan and being awarded runner-up at the Pre-Moot in Madrid, as well as having achieved excellent results at non-competitive pre-moots in Munich and Belgrade, the students of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law came back from the XIX annual Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot, which took place form 31 March to 5 April 2012 in Vienna, with seven awards – three of them being awarded to the entire team and four of them being individual. Only the University of Freiburg (Germany) managed to achieve such a large number of awards at this year’s competition. This year’s strong competition – 282 teams from 67 countries – makes the success of the team that represented our Faculty even greater.

The Willem C. Vis Moot consists in solving a hypothetical problem dealing with arbitration and international sale of goods. This year’s problem involved the following issues: the possibility challenge to the legal counsel on the basis of close professional and personal ties with the chairman of the arbitration tribunal pursuant to the Rules of China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC), legal consequences of belated delivery of goods, exemption of liability, compensation of damages for the loss of goodwill and effects of corruption to the recoverability of damages.

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. The best 64 teams are then divided into 32 pairs and they proceed to elimination rounds.

During the qualification rounds our students competed against the teams from the following universities: Victoria University Melbourne (Australia), Westminster University of Tashkent (Uzbekistan), University of Cergy-Pontoise (France) and University of Saarland (Germany). For the eighth year in a row, our Faculty managed to qualify for the elimination rounds. Such a continuous success is truly remarkable at the Moot and apart from our Faculty, it is only the National University of Juridical Sciences from Kolkata that manages to keep the same outstanding level of performance. Along with this achievement, the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law received four honorable mentions for the best speakers, the honorable mention for the best memorandum on behalf of claimant and the honorable mention for the best memorandum on behalf of respondent. The tradition of excellence in performance at the Moot continued this year as well and Belgrade appeared again as one of the leading centers for arbitration and legal education.

The students who received honorable mentions for the best speakers are: Jelena Arsic, Mina Sreckovic, Anja Tasic and Andjelka Todorovic. The team also included: Vanja Vujnovic, Stefan Golubovic, Marina Nikolic, Ana Odorovic, Ana Petrovic and Andja Savic. Vladan Petkovic participated in the preparation of written submissions for claimant. The team was coached, for the tenth year in a row, by Professor Vladimir Pavic and Milena Djordjevic, LL.M. They were assisted by Marko Jovanovic, LL.M. and Uros Zivkovic.

The University of Belgrade Faculty of Law uses this opportunity to once again express its gratitude to all the institutions and individuals who 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 donors consists of: National Bank of Serbia, Zeleznice Srbije, Telekom Srbija, Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia, City of Pozarevac, Societe Generale Bank, Cacanska banka, Municipality of Raska, and the following law firms: Karanovic-Nikolic, Moravcevic-Vojnovic-Zdravkovic in cooperation with Schoenherr, CMS Belgrade, Wolf Theiss, Harrison solicitors, Nikolic-Kokanovic-Otasevic, Zivkovic & Samardzic, Mikijelj-Jankovic & Bogdanovic, Baklaja & Igric, Mujezinovic in cooperation with Clyde & Co., Blecic and partners, Prica & partners, Miroslav Paunovic, Nenad Stankovic and Rajna Andric.

Students of the Vis Moot team that represented University of Belgrade Faculty of Law at the XIX annual Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot, which took place from 31 March to 5 April 2012 in Vienna, were guests of the RTS 1 Morning program on Wednesday, 11 April 2012 and RTS 2 Serbia on line on Sunday, 22 April 2012. See>>