Publish time: Mon Mar 12 11:12:13 CST 2018
On 3-4 March 2018, the 2nd Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot - Beijing Pre-Moot organized by the Beijing Arbitration Commission / Beijing International Arbitration Center (the “BAC”) jointly with the Chinese Initiative on International Law, the Young Arbitrators Forum of the International Chamber of Commerce and the China Young Arbitration Group and the international arbitration seminar were successfully hosted at the BAC. Eight teams from six Chinese colleges participated in this moot, and a number of renowned arbitrators and senior lawyers within the international arbitration community acted as the jury members. After the round-robins, semi-final and final, the team from the University of International Business and Economics won the championship, the team from the Fudan University the 1st runner-up, and the teams from the Peking University and the China-EU School of Law of China University of Political Science and Law the 2nd runner-up.
During the round robins and semi-final held on 3 March, competitors of the teams have showed their solid legal professional foundation and excellent English fluency. When questioned by the jury members, they well overcame nervousness and reflected strong mentality and outstanding flexibility. Many frontier issues of arbitration law were introduced in this pre-moot. Procedural issues included conflict of interest, third party funding and so on, providing a broad space for debate and discussion on how to design the thread of argument and realize justice under existing arbitration rules. Substantive issues covered the formation and content of a contract during the bidding process, the applicability of standard clauses and the relationship between the sustainable production principle and the compliance with contract under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (“CISG”), fully revealing the competitors’ theoretical strength and testing their flexibility in the use of case facts, with strong practical significance. The competitors said that this event is an ideal mock practice test, where they could find new research directions from the comment section following each tournament, and in the competition with teams from other colleges, they have had more extensive and in-depth understanding of legal and factual issues, which is a rare opportunity for study and self-improvement.
 |
 |
|
The round-robins |
|
 |
 |
|
The knockouts |
|
 |
 |
|
Prof. Lu Song announced the semifinal participants |
Mr. Zhang Haoliang announced the list of final participants |
On 4 March, the final was conducted between the team of the University of International Business and Economics and the team of Fudan University. Prof. Zhang Yuejiao from the Tsinghua University who is also a BAC arbitrator acted as the chief arbitrator. She constituted the tribunal along with Mr. Tao Jingzhou, BAC arbitrator and Partner of Dechert LLP, and Prof. Liu Jingdong from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. After fierce competition, the final was won by the team from the University of International Business and Economics. The arbitral tribunal made a summary of the performance of both teams subsequent to the final, and also shared their opinions on the core issues in dispute and provided suggestions to the competitors. Prof. Zhang pointed out that the moot is aimed at training practice-oriented legal talents, and thus is of great significance. She therefore looked forward to seeing more students participating in such moot events.
The final
Award presentation
After the award presentation, the international arbitration seminar was moderated by Mr. Hu Ke, Partner of Jingtian & Gongcheng. Dr. Chen Fuong presented an introduction of the new trends of international arbitration to the audience during the first session. He stressed that in recent years the international arbitration community has paid specific attention to efficiency improvement, cost reduction, technical innovation and gender balance, and in this respect shared the example of the BAC practice with the audience. Meanwhile, he said that young students should not only care about the development of arbitration rules, but also how the international arbitration system supporting such evolution and the reasons behind the reforms. In the second session, Mr. Tao Jingzhou, Dr. Arthur Dong, Partner of Anjie Law Firm, and Mr. Huang Tao, Partner of King & Wood Mallesons, delivered speeches respectively, where they shared their experiences in representing clients in international arbitrations and advised on young lawyers’ career development. Mr. Tao Jingzhou made analysis of the features of ad hoc arbitration and institutional arbitration, shared the skills of arbitrator selection in international arbitration, and then provided suggestions to young lawyers for representing clients in international cases. Dr. Dong shared his experience in international cases with specific sample cases that could be summarized in Extensively, Precisely and Creatively. Mr. Huang said that the international arbitration procedure requests for balance, and it is important to keep the balance of the interests of the parties, the arbitration institution, the arbitrators and the lawyers, so as to ensure a smooth progress of the arbitral proceedings.
Speech of Dr. Chen Fuyong
The International Arbitration Seminar
At last, Mr. Lin Zhiwei, Secretary General of the BAC, delivered the closing speech. He firstly expressed congratulations to the success of this moot event and the participants, and thanks to the sponsors. Next, he said that the BAC has been devoted to build a platform for young students’ exchange and practice, and looking forward to assisting with their future career development. Meanwhile, such events are expected to act as a window of the BAC, from which more and more students could walk in and get familiar with the BAC. At last, he hoped that the BAC could host such moot events better in the years to come, and thereby contribute to the development of Chinese international arbitration.
Closing speech by Mr. Lin Zhiwei
Group photo
Special thanks are due to Mr. Bao Zhi, Prof. Chen Weizuo, Mr. Chen Sheng, Dr. Arthur Dong, Mr. Fang Ye, Mr. Guo Yufei, Mr. He Dingyu, Mr. Huang Tao, Mr. Huo Wei, Mr. Jiang Xin, Prof. Liu Jingdong, Prof. Lu Song, Mr. Li Qishi, Ms. Li Yu, Mr. Li Songyuan, Mr. Liu Zhen, Mr. Ma Tianyu, Mr. Arthur Ma, Mr. Darren Mayberry, Mr. Shi Guangyuan, Mr. Tao Jingzhou, Mr. Wang Biyu, Dr. Wang Xuehua, Ms. Xu Min, Ms. Yang Haixuan, Mr. Yang Yulin, Ms. Zhong Li, Mr. Zhang Libin, Prof. Zhang Yuejiao, Mr. Zou Delong and Mr. Zhu Weiyi for their strong support, and also to Anjie Law Firm, Jingtian & Gongcheng, Dechert LLP and King & Wood Mallesons for their generous sponsorship and support. They worked closely with the BAC and other organizers and spared no effort to promote the new generation Chinese legal talents’ study of and attention to commercial arbitration, and jointly promoted the growth of the Chinese arbitration industry.
Click here to download: Vis 2018 Beijing Pre-Moot Rules