MGIMO Team Shines in Willem C. Vis Competition

13 April 2020

April 9^th, the 27^th annual Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot came to a close. MGIMO’s team for the first time ever in the history of their participation in the competition made it into the quarterfinals.

The Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot is the most famous student competition in private international law and international commercial arbitration. It is sponsored by the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) and several reputable international arbitration institutions.

390 universities from around the world participated this year in the competition. MGIMO was represented at the event by a team comprising Roman Smetanin, Aigul Urmantseva, Kamilya Zaripova and Irina Boyko. The captain of the team Nikolai Zinoviev also acted as student coach.

The final round of the competition is usually an oral hearing in Vienna but this year because of the spread of coronavirus infection, the organizers of the event decided to hold the final stage remotely.

Before the decision was made to move online, MGIMO’s team had already won two of the preliminary rounds in Rome and Riga, and shown its abilities during the Moscow Pre-moot and during the training rounds in Berlin.

During the final rounds, the MGIMO team triumphed over the representatives of the UK, the USA, Germany, Mexico, Latvia, India and reached the quarter-finals, becoming the only Russian team to make it into the top eight.

Leonid Prokhorov and Anna Kostina trained the team under the supervision of A.V.Grebelsky, Senior Lecturer at MGIMO’s Department of Private International and Civil Law.

The team received assistance from A.A.Kostin, Head of the Department of Private International and Civil Law, from lecturers of that department and the Department of English N8. MGIMO graduates having previously competed offered their help and support.

Congratulations to the MGIMO team!