17th Willem C. Vis Moot Team wins Principal's Award

LLM students Shingirirai Chaza, Scheherazade Dubash, Bhavna Gokaldas, Heloise Robinson, Ben Waidhofer, 3rd-year LLB student Oliver Coddington, and coaches Greg Travaini, Ziva Filipic, Katherine Lim and Gabriel Olearnik won the Principal’s Award for their victory in the 17th Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot held in Vienna, Austria, from 26 March - 1 April 2010. This made King’s only the second UK university ever to win the competition.

The Willem C. Vis Moot is the biggest and most prestigious international commercial law moot court competition in the world. This year's competition saw a record number of 253 universities from 62 countries participating in what is one of the highlights of the international legal calendar.

In an intense two days of elimination round pleadings, the team won all its matches, beating the University of Warsaw in the Round of 64, George Washington University in the Round of 32, Duke University in the Round of 16, and Jagiellonian University, Poland in the Quarter-Finals and University of Ottawa in the Semi-Finals.

The team was declared the winner of the prestigious Frédéric Eisenmann Award, which is given to the team prevailing in the oral arguments. The 2010 case dealt with a contract for the supply of water pumps under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).

Award winners with the Principal, Professor Rick Trainor
photography by David Tett

The team selection process for 2010-11 has begun. See the following link for more information: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/law/students/mooting/willemcvis/