Online Rounds of the 12th Moscow Pre-Moot for the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot

On 13 March 2021, the online rounds of the 12th Moscow Pre-Moot for the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot began, with each team playing at least twice as claimant and respondent.

The second day of the general rounds took place on 14 March. Teams of Lomonosov Moscow State University and SASTRA University were qualified to the Final Round of the Moscow Pre-Moot arguing before Margaret L. Moses (Institute for International Law and Practice at Loyola University Chicago), Andrey Shirvindt (Lomonosov Moscow State University) and Jan Paulsson (Founding Partner of Three Crowns LLP).

The distinguished panel crowned Lomonosov Moscow State University team as a winner of the 2021 Moscow Pre-Moot. The best speaker - Dana Gabidullina (Lomonosov Moscow State University).

To summarise, we organised 109 rounds in two days, including the Final Round.

We received over 100 applications from the teams to join the Pre-Moot, but only 53 teams from Russia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, Indonesia, India, Poland, Turkey, Serbia, Italy, China, Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Malaysia, Netherlands, USA, Guatemala, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Singapore, Slovakia and Iran were admitted as participants.

More than 150 arbitrators expressed a desire to participate in the biggest Moscow Pre-Moot in its history, and another 20 arbitrators acted as emergency arbitrators.

We, more than 40 organisers and volunteers who administered the rounds, would like to thank all the teams and arbitrators for accomplishing our cherished goal to make the Moscow Pre-Moot a valuable platform for the teams to advance into elimination rounds in Vienna or Hong Kong and for the future career of the participants as international lawyers.

The Russian Institute of Modern Arbitration is grateful to UNCITRAL for its support. The Institute would also like to thank its partners: KIAP, Dentons, Nektorov, Saveliev & Partners, Lidings, and information partners: Global Arbitration News and Transnational Dispute Management.

In just one weekend, the Moscow Pre-Moot brought together more than 600 people!