YLS Students awarded honors in international commercial arbitration moot

Students representing Yale Law School have recently returned from Vienna after competing in the twentieth annual Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot. The team was conferred two honorable mentions: in the Frédéric Eisemann Award for oral advocacy as well as in the Werner Melis Award for best respondent's memorandum. Yale also advanced to the highly selective direct elimination rounds. This is the strongest result a YLS team has achieved since the law school first took part in the moot.

This year´s team consisted of Romain Zamour ’13, Benjamin Farkas ’14, Rebecca Counts ’15, Philipp Kotlaba ’15, Raul Ruiz ’15 and Adam Adler ’15. The team was coached by doctoral candidate Alexander Aizenstatd ’09 LL.M. The moot was held in Vienna from March 22–28.

“The Vis moot provides an excellent learning opportunity for those interested in the growing field of international arbitration. It is one of the largest and most prestigious moots in the world. This year alone the moot gathered teams from almost 300 universities around the globe.” stated team coach Alexander Aizenstatd.

At the oral rounds in Vienna, Philipp Kotlaba and Benjamin Farkas argued the case on behalf of Claimant, a retail company asserting contractual damages related to a clothing purchase agreement. Romain Zamour and Rebecca Counts argued for Respondent, a clothing manufacturer accused of employing child labor in some of its factories.


Moot Participants Raul Ruiz ’15, Philipp Kotlaba ’15, Benjamin Farkas ’14, Rebecca Counts ’15, and Romain Zamour ’13 (Not pictured: Adam Adler '15)