Institute Team Success at ICC Lex Mercatoria
In Minsk, under the aegis of the Law Faculty of Belarus State University, on 28-30 November 2015, the IV ICC Lex Mercatoria International Student Competition on International Trade Law and International Commercial Arbitration was held. The team from the Skolkovo-HSE Institute for Law and Development consisted of four third-year students of the HSE Faculty of Law, and they were trained by Institute fellow Maxin Karliuk.
The ICC Lex Mercatoria is an annual international student competition, conducted in Belarus and attracts an increasing number of participants year-on-year, in terms of students, and also professionals. Such international competitions (similar include B. Teldersa, and Kazan's Federal University's F. Jessup) are widely known in law circles and aim to teach law students to combine applied knowledge from a specific problem with simulation of an international commerical arbitration case.
The competition was attended by sixteen teams of students from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. The competition material was based on real casework from the practice of the ICC International Court of Arbitration, namely, the dispute between the Sportinvest LLC and the Hokkeytehnika JSC over the sale and purchase of equipment. This international arbitration case, exploring its terms, was brought to life again as the basis for the academic competition.
Each of the sixteen teams prepreared and sent their opponents memoranda of plaintiff and defendant respectively, and with these they set out the legal positions.
At the oral hearing the teams put forward their arguments in the dispute, and the debate's parties asked questions of each other and responded to the specific questions of arbitrators. The roles were that of the ICC International Arbitration Court (P
aris), the arbitrators of the International Arbitration Court at the BCCI, partners and associates of international and domestic law firms, together with team trainers.
In conclusion, the Skolkovo-HSE Institute for Law and Development was awarded the following: third place in the "Best Applicant Memorandum" category, third place in the "Best Respondent Memorandum" category, and also the "Debut of the Year" diploma was awarded.