Moot Structure

The Moot incorporates both judicial and out-of-court methods of dispute resolution in one competition. This gives each team an opportunity to pursue two awards at the same time: one in litigation, one in mediation. Classic moot court hearing is immediately followed by mediation proceedings where two conflicting parties meet the third participant of the round from a totally different team.

The litigation and the mediation competition are carefully assessed by the Panel of Arbitrators (Panel) comprised of well-known experts in international corpotate dispute resolution from different countries around the world. We knowingly chose to refer to the Panel as “arbitrators” instead of “judges”, as it usually happens during moot litigations, out of courtesy for the profession of judge which we admire and respect.

The structure of the Moot includes two essential dispute resolution paradigms: litigation in court and ADR through mediation.

Registered teams first submit two memoranda for the Claimant and the Respondent following the rules set out in Memoranda, Litigation and Mediation Guidelines and Unified Evaluation Criteria. Teams' mediators may by all means take part in the memoranda drafting at this stage as ordinary team members.

A week later Oral rounds begin which include litigation rounds and mediation rounds. The litigators and the mediator of a team act independently and never meet during oral rounds. Litigators compete with other litigators, while the mediator appears only at the mediation stage and holds the proceeding with 2 teams, none of which is theirs. At some point litigators may be evicted while their successful mediator may continue to the next level adding scores to their team, or vice versa. Besides, during the mediation stage the litigators perform a role play as client and attorney, which is also assessed by the Panel.

No later than two months after the finale the Panel of Arbitrators will provide the teams with the results for their written and oral performance combined. The results will be uploaded on the website and send to the teams' Contact Persons.