AWARDS

Fifth Annual
WILLEM C. VIS
INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL ARBITRATION MOOT

Juridicum
and
International Arbitral Centre
Federal Economic Chamber

April 1-6, 1997

THE RULES

Organized by:
Institute of International Commercial Law
Pace University School of Law
78 North Broadway
White Plains, NY 10603
USA

INTRODUCTION

I. The Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot

The Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot is an annual competition of teams representing law schools throughout the world (the "Arbitral Moot"). In the Fourth Annual Moot in 1996-97 forty eight law school teams from 19 countries on 5 continents participated. The Moot was judged by 120 lawyers and professors from 25 countries.

Goals. The Arbitral Moot is intended to stimulate the study of international commercial law, especially the legal texts prepared by UNCITRAL, and the use of international commercial arbitration to resolve international commercial disputes. The international nature of the Arbitral Moot is intended to lead participants to interpret the texts of international commercial law in the light of different legal systems and to develop an expertise in advocating a position before an arbitral panel composed of arbitrators from different legal systems.

II. Organization of the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot

Organizer, Co-sponsors, Supporters The Arbitral Moot is organized by the Institute of International Commercial Law at Pace University School of Law. It is co-sponsored by the American Arbitration Association, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce, International Arbitral Centre at the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, London Court of International Arbitration, Faculty of Law of the University of Vienna and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). It has also received support from Kluwer Law International, Oceana Publishing Inc., the Vienna Convention Bureau and the City of Vienna.

Venue. The oral hearings will be held in Vienna, Austria at the Faculty of Law (Juridicum) of the University of Vienna. The general rounds will take place on Saturday through Tuesday, April 4 to 7, 1998. The quarter-final and semi-final rounds will take place on Wednesday, April 8, 1998, with the final round on Thursday, April 9, 1998.

Language. The Arbitral Moot will be conducted in English.

RULES

Registration

Registration is accomplished by submission of the registration form and is confirmed by payment of the registration fee of $500. Since a maximum of 64 teams will be accommodated in the Fifth Moot, the registration form be submitted as early as possible, and at the latest at least one week prior to the date on which the Problem is distributed. Registration will be accepted at a later date to the extent that space is available and there is sufficient time for the team to prepare and submit the memorandum for claimant.

The registration fee includes an invitation to an opening reception for all team members, coaches and accompanying persons, which is expected to be held at the Vienna International Centre, the home of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, on Friday, April 3, 1998. It also includes an invitation for up to four team members and accompanying team coach to the awards banquet in the Festsaal of the Wiener Rathaus (Vienna City Hall) on Thursday, April 9, 1998, following the Final Round of hearings. Additional team members and accompanying persons are also invited, but will be asked to pay for the actual cost of the meal.

The registration form includes space for two names and addresses. Results of the current Moot will be sent to the person listed at the top of the form. Invitations to participate in subsequent Moots will also be sent to that person. The Problem, clarifications, claimant’s memorandum to which a defendant’s memorandum must be prepared and information relevant to housing in Vienna and other organizational aspects of the Moot will be sent to the person listed at the bottom of the form. It is the responsibility of the designated person to distribute all relevant material to the team.

Communications between the team and the Institute through anyone other than the designated person are at the risk of the team.

The registration may be withdrawn at any time prior to the date for the submission of the claimant’s memorandum, i.e., December 9, 1997, and the registration fee will be refunded in full. A team that submits its memorandum for claimant will be paired with two other teams for the exchange of memoranda, as described in Part IV below, and will be scheduled to meet those two teams in the first two oral arguments, as described in Part V below. Withdrawal after submission of the memorandum for claimant would affect the Moot for the two teams paired for the exchange of memoranda and the first two arguments. Therefore, teams that have submitted the memorandum for claimant are expected to participate in the entire Moot, including the oral arguments, and no refund of the registration fee will be made.

II. The Problem

Subject Matter. The Problem in the 1997-98 Arbitral Moot involves a controversy arising out of a hypothetical international sale of goods subject to the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).

Dispute Settlement. The controversy is before an ad hoc arbitral tribunal pursuant to the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules. The parties have agreed that the arbitration will be held in Vindobona, Danubia. Danubia has enacted the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (Model Law). Danubia, Equatoriana and Mediterraneo, the three hypothetical states involved, are party to the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention).

The Competition. By the time the 1997-98 Arbitral Moot begins, the arbitral tribunal has been appointed, the claimant has filed its request for arbitration and the respondent has filed its statement of defense. The Arbitral Moot involves writing memoranda and oral argument in support of the positions of the claimant and respondent.

Distribution. The Problem will be distributed by the Institute on Friday, October 3, 1997 by posting on the Institute’s Web site. The current URL for the Moot is http://www.cisg.law.pace.edu./cisg/text/pace-ins.htm#moot. The problem will be sent by e-mail to any participating team that does not have access to the World Wide Web and by express mail within the United States or courier service outside the United States to any participating team that cannot receive it by e-mail.

Facts. The facts in the dispute that is the subject matter of the Moot are given in the Problem. No additional facts may be introduced into the Moot unless they are a logical and necessary extension of the given facts. By way of example, the subject matter of the dispute in the Fourth Moot was men’s suits. It was legitimate to assume that the suits were made of cloth. It was not legitimate to assume that they were, or should have been, made of pure wool. If the material out of which they were made seemed to be relevant, the team should have requested a clarification of the Problem. Arguments based on new facts that are not a logical and necessary extension of the given facts and for which no clarification has been requested will not be accepted. Arbitrators will be requested to enforce this rule strictly in both the memorandum and oral arguments.

Clarifications. Requests for clarification of the Problem may be sent to the Institute prior to October 24, 1997. A request for clarification must include a short explanation of the expected significance of the clarification. Any clarifications issued by the Institute will be distributed to all teams by November 3, 1997, using the same methods of distribution as were used for the Problem. Any team that has not received the clarifications in electronic form by November 3, 1997, or by November 10, 1997 in written form, should immediately notify the Institute. Clarifications issued by the Institute become part of the Problem.

III. Teams

Number. A maximum of 64 teams will be permitted register for the Fifth Moot. To the extent possible law schools that have participated in the Moot in previous years will be given preference. The registration of law schools that have not previously participated will be accepted in the order of application. A further increase in the number of teams that can be accommodated is expected for the Sixth Annual Moot in 1998-99.

Composition. Each participating law school may enter one team. A team is composed of two or more students registered at the school for the study of law. There is no maximum limit on the number of students who may be members of the team. No student who has been either admitted or licensed to practice law is eligible to participate.

The list of team members must be submitted to the Institute at or before December 9, 1997, the date when the memorandum for claimant is to be submitted. Eligibility to participate in the Moot is determined as of December 9, 1997.

Certificates of participation will be prepared for participating team members from the lists submitted to the Institute. Therefore, names should be spelled as they should appear on the certificates, including any diacritical marks.

Participation. All members of the team may participate in preparation of the memoranda for claimant and respondent.

In each of the oral hearings two members of the team will present the argument. Other members of the team may not aid them during the argument in any way. Different members of the team may participate in the different hearings. Therefore, between two and eight members may participate in the oral hearings. However, to be eligible for the prize for best individual oralist, a participant must have argued at least once for the claimant and once for the respondent.

IV. Written Memoranda

Memoranda. Each team must submit a memorandum in support of the claimant's position by December 9, 1997. Each claimant’s memorandum will be sent to one of the other teams to arrive by December 19, 1997. Each team will prepare a memorandum in support of the respondent's position in response to the memorandum in support of the claimant's position that was sent to it. The Institute will determine to which team a memorandum in support of the claimant's position will be sent.

The memorandum for respondent must be responsive to the arguments made in the memorandum for claimant. Nevertheless, the memorandum for claimant to which a memorandum for respondent is to be prepared may not have made all of the arguments that the team preparing the memorandum for respondent believes should have been made. The team preparing the memorandum for respondent may deal with those issues. Such additional arguments (arguments in response to arguments not made by your opponent) would not normally be made in a real arbitration. However, they may be appropriate in the Arbitral Moot. If such arguments are made, they must be identified in an appropriate manner so that the jury judging the memoranda and the arbitrators hearing the oral arguments will be able to consider them separately.

Form, length and other elements of style. Citations must be in footnotes, not endnotes. Citations to authorities should be in a form that is intelligible to all who will read the memorandum, including the members of the other teams, the arbitrators in the oral hearings and the members of the jury who will judge the written phase of the Arbitral Moot, most of whom will be from countries other than your own. Account should be taken that the style of citation of cases or articles in legal journals that is common in one country may not be intelligible to participants in the Moot from other countries. Similarly, care should be taken in the use of legal doctrines common in some legal systems that are not found in the CISG, Model Law, New York Convention or UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules and that may not be known to teams or arbitrators from other legal systems.

Memoranda may be no longer than thirty (30) double spaced 8½ x 11 inch or A4 typed pages, including any statement of facts, argument or discussion, and footnotes. Cover pages, tables of contents, indices, lists of authorities or other material that does not consist of facts, argument or discussion may be in addition.

No type style smaller than 10 point may be used. The use of 12 point proportional type is encouraged. Reproduction of all copies must be full sized and clear.

Memoranda may be reproduced on both sides of the paper.

Memoranda must be bound or stapled securely so that the binding or stapling will hold throughout the Moot. Memoranda that are held together by rubber bands, light weight staples, paper clips or other insecure means are not properly submitted and will not be considered for award.

The name of the team and whether the memorandum is for the claimant or for the respondent must appear prominently on the outside cover page.

Memorandum Revision. A memorandum may not be revised once it has been submitted to the Institute, including for missing pages or for typographical or grammatical errors or for problems caused by faulty computer software. Sufficient time should be left prior to submission to verify the text to be submitted.

Scoring of Memoranda. A jury selected by the Institute will score the memoranda on the basis of the quality of the analysis, persuasiveness of argument, thoroughness of research and the clarity of the writing. The jury will take into account whether arguments are based on facts not found in the Problem or clarifications and that are not logical and necessary extensions of the given facts. When judging the memorandum for respondent, account will be taken whether it is responsive to the arguments raised by the claimant.

Submission of Memoranda. Each team is to submit in total twenty-five (25) copies of the memorandum for claimant and the memorandum for respondent. The memoranda must also be submitted on a diskette, preferably 3½ inch. The diskette should be prominently labeled, indicating the Fifth Moot, the name of the team, memorandum for claimant or defendant and the word processing system used.

Deadlines and Place for Submission of Memoranda. The submission of twenty-five (25) copies of the memorandum for claimant and for respondent should be sent to:

Professor Eric E. Bergsten
International Commercial Arbitration Moot
Schimmelgasse 16/14
A-1030 Vienna, Austria

Tel. & fax +43 1 713-5408 (From December 8, 1997 only.)
E-mail: ebergsten@genesis.law.pace.edu

Memoranda must be received by the following dates:

Memorandum for claimant
Memorandum for respondent
 December 9, 1997
February 13, 1998

Extensions of the due date for claimant’s memorandum will be considered only if requested by December 1, 1997 and for defendant’s memorandum by February 6, 1998. Extensions will be granted only for reasons considered sufficient by the Institute and only to the extent that they do not preclude sending the memorandum to the other team or teams and to the arbitrators in sufficient time.

The designated contact person for each team will be sent the memorandum for claimant to which a memorandum for respondent must be prepared in time for it to be received between December 16 and 19, 1997. If the contact person will not be available at the address given during that period, a substitute person or address must be notified to the Institute prior to December 1, 1997.

By February 23, 1998, the designated contact person will be sent the memorandum for respondent prepared in reply to its memorandum for claimant as well as the memoranda of the other teams against which it will argue in its third and fourth oral hearings.

Copyright. Memoranda once submitted shall be the property of the Institute and may be copyrighted by the Institute.

V. Oral Hearings

Venue. The oral hearings will be held at the Faculty of Law (Juridicum) of the University of Vienna, Schottenbastei, 10-16, A-1010 Vienna, Austria. The final argument will be held at the Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, Wiedner Hauptstrasse 63, A-1045 Vienna.

General Rounds. Each team will argue four times in the general rounds, twice as claimant and twice as respondent. In its first two oral hearings, each team will argue once as claimant and once as respondent. The respondent will be the team that prepared the memorandum for respondent in opposition to the memorandum for claimant that was sent to it. In its third and fourth oral hearings the teams will argue against teams with which they were not paired for the purpose of preparing written memoranda.

The general rounds will be scheduled so that, in principle, each team will argue once per day, Saturday through Tuesday. If there should be an odd number of participating teams, and occasionally for other reasons, it may be necessary for a team to argue twice on the same day.

Quarter-final Round. After the general rounds, the scores of each team for its oral presentation in the four arguments will be totaled. The eight teams that have obtained the highest composite scores will meet in the quarter-final round Wednesday morning, April 8, 1998. They will be paired so that the first and eighth, second and seventh, third and sixth and fourth and fifth will argue against one another. Ranking of the eight teams will not be divulged until completion of the final round. Decision as to which teams will be claimant and which will be respondent in the quarter-final round will be determined by lot.

Semi-final Round. The winners of the quarter-final round will meet in the semi-final round Wednesday afternoon, April 8, 1998. When one of the two teams in any semi-final round was claimant and the other was respondent in the quarter-final round, they will argue for the opposite party in the semi-final round. If both teams argued for the claimant or both argued for the respondent in the quarter-final round, the decision as to which team will be claimant and which will be respondent in the semi-final round will be determined by lot.

Final Round. The two winners of the semi-final round will meet in the final round Thursday, April 9, 1998. If one of the two teams argued for claimant and the other for respondent in the semi-final round, they will argue for the opposite party in the final round. If they both argued for the same party in the semi-final round, the decision as to which team will be claimant and which will be respondent in the final round will be determined by lot.

Duration of Oral Presentation. The oral presentation of each team is, in principle, thirty (30) minutes. The team should allocate equitably the time available to the two individual advocates. However, the arbitral tribunal may exceed the time limits stated so long as neither team is allowed more than forty-five (45) minutes to present its argument, including the time necessary to answer the questions of the tribunal. It will be the responsibility of the tribunal to ensure that the teams are treated fairly.

Arguments. In all its hearings as claimant and in its first hearing as respondent each team should expect to be restricted by the arbitral tribunal to the arguments presented in its written memorandum. In any subsequent hearing as respondent a team may depart from the arguments it presented in its memorandum in order to respond to the arguments of the claimant.

Questions by Arbitrators. The arbitrators are requested to act during the oral hearings as much as possible the way they would in a real arbitration. There are significant differences in style dependent both on individual personalities and on perceptions of the role of an arbitrator (or judge) in oral argument. Some arbitrators, or arbitral tribunals, may interrupt a presentation with persistent or even aggressive questioning. Other arbitrators, or arbitral tribunals, may listen to an entire argument without asking any questions.

Order of presentation. The claimant will argue first. The arbitrators will announce prior to each argument whether the claimant will be given an opportunity to present rebuttal arguments, thereby, permitting the claimant to argue last, or whether there will be no rebuttal, in which case the defendant will argue last. Whether or not rebuttal will be allowed can be expected to change from one argument to the next.

Scoring. Arbitrators will score the oral arguments without knowledge of the scores on the written memoranda or the results of earlier arguments.

Winning Team. The winning team of the oral phase of the Arbitral Moot is the team that wins the final round.

VI. Assistance

Written Memoranda. The memoranda must be the product of the team itself. Teams from jurisdictions where English is not the mother tongue may have a coach to aid them in regard to the use of the English language, terminology and the like. All coaches in regard to the English language must rigorously refrain from aiding in the preparation of the memorandum itself, by editing the memorandum or otherwise.

Oral Hearings. There is no restriction on the amount of coaching that a team may receive in preparation for the oral hearings.

In each oral hearing two members of the team will present the argument. No communication with other members of the team who may be present at the hearing is permitted.

One purpose of the Arbitral Moot is to develop the art of advocacy in international commercial arbitration proceedings. Observance of the performance of other participants is one way to develop that art. Therefore, attendance at the quarter-final, semi-final and final rounds is encouraged. Attendance of team members at the general rounds is permitted, except that no team, or friends or relatives of members of a team, is permitted to attend arguments of other teams against which it is scheduled to argue at a later time. Violation of this rule will disqualify a team from participation in the quarter-final round.

VII. Awards

Pieter Sanders Award for Best Written Memorandum for Claimant.

Werner Melis Award for Best Written Memorandum for Respondent.

Martin Domke Award for Best Individual Oralist. This award for the general rounds will be won by the individual advocate with the highest composite score during these rounds. To be eligible for this award a participant must have argued at least once for the claimant and once for the respondent.

Frédéric Eisemann Award for Best Team Orals. This award will be made to the winning team in the final round of the oral hearings.

VIII. Interpretation of the Rules

Requests. For interpretation of these rules, requests may be addressed to the Institute. All interpretations, as well as any waivers, consents, or other decisions are at the discretion of the Institute in its administration of the Arbitral Moot.

IX. Mailing Address

From August 1, 1997 to December 5, 1997 communications should be addressed to:

Professor Eric E. Bergsten
School of Law, Pace University
78 North Broadway
White Plains, NY 10603
USA

Tel: (1-914) 422-4402
Fax: (1-914) 422-4229
E-mail: ebergsten@genesis.law.pace.edu

Prior to August 1, 1997 and after December 5, 1997 communications should be addressed to:

Professor Eric E. Bergsten
International Commercial Arbitration Moot
Schimmelgasse 16/14
A-1030 Vienna
Austria

Tel: (43-1) 713-5408
Fax: (43-1) 713-5408
E-mail: ebergsten@genesis.law.pace.edu
Pace Law School Institute of International Commercial Law - September 1997
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