Student negotiating team celebrates success
King's Negotiators receiving their award from Tat Lim
Students from The Dickson Poon School of Law are celebrating after their success in an international mooting competition this month. The King's Negotiators team won 3rd Prize at The IBA-VIAC Mediation & Negotiation Competition organised with ELSA1. The Consensual Dispute Resolution Competition (CDRC) was held between 10-14 July.
The team led, by the coach Dima Alexandrova (LLM), consisted of LLM students Mathilde Heusghem, and Benedikt Hadorn and 1st year LLB students Abraham Brown and Salman Shaheen. During the competition, the King`s students had common sessions and directly competed with the teams from USA (SUNY Buffalo NY), Lebanon (St. Joseph University), India (Goa University) and Australia (New South Wales), Czech Republic (Charles University) and Germany (University of Bonn). All these teams have established Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) practices and coaching.
The King’s Negotiators team went through a competitive application process to reach the competition in Vienna. 55 teams from all over the world applied, with 33 being selected to participate in either the mediation (11 teams) or negotiation (22 teams) categories. Presenting the award for 3rd prize to the King’s Negotiators was Tat Lim, a Singapore-based lawyer, mediator and trainer who is also a King`s College alumnus.
The competition constituted a simulated mediation session in which students play roles of clients and councils representing two parties of a dispute. The case dealt with was the one of Willem Vis International Arbitration Moot Court competition. The aim of the competition, is to educate new generation lawyers in line with the newest trend in the world of commercial disputes in Mediations/Negotiations, to further the business interests of the clients in a cost-effective way with crafty negotiation techniques. This is achieved by means of comparing the merely adversarial arbitration proceedings with negotiation.
The competition was organised by the International Bar Association in a collaboration with the Vienna International Arbitration Centre at the WU Wien (University of Economics and Business Vienna) between the 10-15 July 2017. The event gathered people from all over the world: organisers and 60 assessors who are eminent practitioners such as Tom Valenti (US), Mihael McIlwrath (US), Nadja Alexander (Hong Kong), Tat Lim (Singapore), Diego Faleck (Brazil), Alexandre Palermo Simoes (Brazil), Kimberley Schreiber (US).
The team had dedicated a significant amount of their time in preparation and fundraising for this event and would like to thank their sponsors Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP and The Grand Lodge of Freemasonry for Men and Women’ Great Britain. The coach would like to stand gratitude to the Visiting Professor at the School Christopher Bown (Private Equity Finance), for his excellent teaching and guidance, and for his help in fundraising. The King`s Negotiators also gained the credit of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb), who also provided support. The team would also like to thank Aled Davies, Rosemary Jackson QC, and Mihael Jeklic, for their support and feedback.
1Acronyms:
- IBA (International Bar Association)
- VIAC (Vienna International Arbitral Centre)
- ELSA (The European Law Students’ Association)
Find out more about the IBA-VIAC Mediation & Negotiation Competition organised with ELSA.