The School of Law of UCLan Cyprus proudly announces that its team of law students has just competed for the fourth time in the prestigious Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot (Vienna, Austria) co-sponsored by Dr. Andreas P. Poetis & Co LLC and Harris Kyriakides LLC.

The Moot intends to stimulate the study of international commercial law, especially the legal texts prepared by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), and the use of international commercial arbitration to resolve international commercial disputes. The international nature of the Moot intends 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. The Moot is designed to be an educational program with many facets in the form of a competition; it is not intended to be a competition with incidental educational benefits. This year Willem C. Vis Moot celebrated its 30th anniversary and participation has been unprecedented with almost 400 teams participating and more than 1000 arbitrators supporting the oral stages of the competition.

UCLan Cyprus’ student team taking part in the 30th Willem C Vis Moot consisted of Romina G., Krestin Saad Mousa Naffa, Anastasios Perdikos, Joya Lahoud, Mohamed Murad Muhamed Hamaima and Lambros Dinos. They were coached by Dr Nevi Agapiou, Lecturer in International Commercial Law and Dispute Resolution and Dr Maria Tatsiou, Lecturer in Financial and Corporate Law.

UCLan Cyprus remains the first and only University in Cyprus to be taking part in this prestigious student competition (https://www.vismoot.org/30th-vis-moot/) offering a superlative student experience. Our preparation involved the drafting of 2 written Memoranda as always, one on behalf of the Claimant and one of behalf of the Respondent before proceeding to train our Oralist students on the facts and arguments through internal training. This also involved online practice moots with a number of Universities, such as Australian Catholic University, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv culminating in a formal online pre-moot session against the University of Maribor, Slovenia appearing on behalf of the Respondent on Monday 27th March, 18:00-20:00. The Arbitral Tribunal comprised Dr. Maria Tatsiou (presiding arbitrator, UCLan Cyprus), Dr. Nicolas Kyriakides (Harris Kyriakides LLC) and Constantinos Kotrofos (Dr. Andreas P. Poetis & Co LLC).

The oral stage of the competition took place in Vienna, Austria between 1-6 April 2023 and saw our team compete in the general rounds against Monash University, University of Florence, Yerevan State University and Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law. Moreover, Dr. Maria Tatsiou also got to arbitrate some of the general rounds. UCLan Cyprus is proud of its team, warmly congratulates and thanks its students and their Coaches for all of their hard work and efforts and looks forward to continuing the tradition of taking part in the Willem C Vis Moot in the years to come for the benefit of our students and staff alike.