Queen Mary LLM students achieved a top 10 position in an international arbitration moot competition.
The annual Frankfurt Investment Arbitration Moot Court Competition allows students to engage with international investment law and gain an insight into international arbitration. The competition involves a dispute (case study) arising out of international investment protection law and provisions of a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT).
Queen Mary University of London was represented this year by students from the London and Paris LLM programmes. They presented their oral arguments to a panel of world-renowned arbitrators at the competition final on 10-15 March.45 teams from 18 different countries took part in the competition and Queen Mary was one of three UK universities alongside Warwick and Glasgow. Before the oral proceedings the team was required to submit a written outline of their argument. Preparation begins in September with an intensive schedule of research, writing and advocacy practice.LLM students, Talel Aronowicz (UK), Ivan Phillipov (Russia), Julianne Rodriguez (USA) and Karen Seif (Lebanon), made up the Queen Mary team. They were coached by Constanza Onetto (Chile) who has previously worked in Investor – State Arbitrations.
During the competition the team addressed issues such as: the application of general exception provisions in investment treaties, the admissibility of tax and custom claims double taxation and surveillance, diplomatic protection, corruption and document production in the context of investment arbitration.
To prepare for this competition, the Queen Mary team took part in the pre-moot round organized by the ICC in Paris in January 2014 and emerged a finalist. The team also pleaded at practice rounds hosted by Baker Botts, Quinn Emanuel and Clifford Chance in London.
The 7th Frankfurt Moot was organised by the Merton Zentrum fur Europalsche Integration and Internationale Wirts chafts ordnung with the support of the IHK Frankfurt am Main and FIAC.