Mooting initiatives develop our LLM students’ transferable skills
LLM Mooting Initiatives and Success
Swansea University (Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law (IISTL)) was selected to be the host for the International Maritime Law Arbitration Moot (IMLAM) 2023.
The event was held in Swansea, with the participation of 18 teams from 9 countries, in July 2023 and concluded with a brilliant finale held at Trinity House, London.
Among the surroundings of the magnificent and historical building, two mooting teams from the University of Queensland and the University of Sydney had a final show-down before an elite panel of judges; Mr Justice Andrew Baker (Admiralty Judge, High Court), Simon Rainey KC (Quadrant Chambers) and Mr Paul Dean (Global Head of Shipping, HFW). After an hour of top-tier mooting, the University of Queensland (Lauren Gunther and William Garske) emerged as winners.
The competition had many positives; the mooting team from the University of Tehran was awarded the ‘Spirit of the Moot’ Award. Similarly, Natasha Nicholson from Northumbria University's team was awarded ‘Best Speaker’ from a team participating for the first time in the competition, and the University of Hong Kong team were awarded the ‘Best Memoranda’ award.
We offer their congratulations the brilliant mooting teams that made it to the quarter finals after tense initial rounds: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Singapore Management University, University of Indonesia, The University of Hong Kong, West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences and Swansea University.
At the concluding ceremony, on behalf of the Organising Committee, it was announced by Mr David Goodwin that next year’s competition would be held again in Swansea. The fact that a university has never had the honour of hosting the event in two consecutive years is a great illustration of the leading role that Swansea plays in legal maritime education.
Speaking after the event, Professor Soyer, Director of the IISTL, commented:
“On behalf of the IISTL, we would like to thank to all our judges from legal practice, academia and the P&I world, who freely gave up their time to contribute to the development of the next generation of maritime lawyers! And of course, once again we would like to pay our respects to all of our supporters: HFW (for the generous sponsorship), HST Marine, International Group of P&I Clubs, WISTA UK, and our information partner i-law.
The event was a great occasion that brought teams from 9 different countries to Swansea, and provided a fantastic environment for developing the advocacy skills of those who participated, and a networking opportunity with maritime practitioners. We shall be delighted to see everyone back in Swansea next July, and look forward to representing the UK in the international arena!”
This year’s LLM students were proud to take part in the annual Swansea University IISTL internal moot competition final, a culmination of all their hard work throughout the year.
The event took place on Wednesday 07 June in London and was graciously hosted by Kennedys Law in their new London office.
The teams consisted of claimants Ralph Mouawad (speaker), Layesh Premraj (speaker) and Prachi Agarwal (researcher), and respondents Opeyemi Omolere (speaker), Vishesh Tyagi (speaker) and Nazmus Sakib (researcher). After a thorough grilling by our excellent judges, Paul Henton (Quadrant Chambers), Kennedys partner Michael Biltoo (who we have to thank for organising the event for us) and associate Ingrid Hu, the claimants were declared the winners of the moot. Not all was lost, however, for the runners up, as Ms Omolere was selected as Best Speaker and was therefore the winner of the Quadrant Chambers prize for Swansea LLM mooting students. Ms Agarwal also received a second award as she and Panagiotis Moustakas won Best Skeleton during the initial rounds.
Winners standing with Paul Henton (Quadrant Chambers), Ingrid Hu and Michael Biltoo (Kennedys Law)
Congratulations were offered by all in the audience, who were made up of other Shipping & Trade LLM students, including mooters who took part in the initial rounds of the competition, and staff members Professor Andrew Tettenborn and Angie Nicholas. Dr Kurtz-Shefford, director of Shipping & Trade Law mooting, said this: “Both teams did a great job this year. The competition was intense, but they put on a great show and never gave up – they did their university proud. We’re particularly grateful to Kennedys for offering our students such a fantastic experience and employability opportunity. We’re also very thankful to Quadrant Chambers for supporting our students with their mooting prize.”
Runners up (and best speaker winner) standing with judges.
This year was the first since Covid where the HFW & Swansea’s Shipping & Trade LLM internal moot final was held again in a face to face environment. The event took place at HFW’s London headquarters – a long time supporter of our event.
The teams were made up of the Claimant representatives Ms Dominique M. Gonzalez R., Mr Fumihiko Yoshida and Researcher Mr Yuan Qiao, and the Defendant representatives Ms Ece Birinci, Mr Edmundo Deville and Researcher Ms Nidhi Potla.
It was already a tough competition, but it was made more challenging by the excellent questions posed by our panel of judges:
Mr Simon Rainey KC of Quadrant Chambers, Mr Florian Schacker and Ms Johanna Ohlman of HFW. We thank them sincerely for carving out time from their busy calendars to participate.
The students found it to be an incredibly rewarding, unique and insightful experience. The team representing the Defendants won, overall, with Mr Rainey KC praising their quality of arguments and ability to answer difficult questions.
Dr Tabetha Kurtz-Shefford, Deputy Director of Shipping and Trade LLM programmes, had this to say:
“We were ecstatic to be able to offer our students something that few other LLM programmes have been able to provide, and we are immensely proud of all the students who took part. Particular congratulations are in order for Ece, Edmundo and Nidhi for their hard work (winners of the moot), and also to their opponents for putting up such a valiant fight.
We hope to continue such events in the future as they give students inimitable practical insight into their potential futures. We are especially grateful for HFW for hosting such an amazing and valued event.
Swansea Maritime Moot Concluded with an Impressive Final Supported by HFW
At Swansea, our aim is not only to help our LLM students develop their legal research and critical thinking skills, but also to build confidence in public speaking. To this end, we offer a non-credit bearing module, Commercial and Maritime Mooting, which is optional but often taken by a majority of our students. This year, despite the difficulties posed by the global pandemic, we ran this module with both online and in person training. Following an intense internal competition, six of our students successfully reached the final and enjoyed the privilege of arguing their case on a complex multimodal issue before a panel composed of some great commercial lawyers: Mr Simon Croall KC (Head of Quadrant Chambers) and Mr Paul Dean (Global Head of Shipping, HFW).
Following a fascinating final, the respondents, Mr Feidi Zeng and Ms Nicole Dele-Alufe, along with their researcher Berk Bayraktar, narrowly secured victory against Mr Haofeng Jin, Ms Angela Nicholas and their researcher Ms Oluwadamilola Adeleke.
Speaking after the final, Dr Kurtz-Shefford, the Director of Commercial and Maritime Mooting, said:
“We are truly grateful for the time Messrs Croall and Dean put into this event, their expertise and consideration offered the students an incredibly rewarding and valuable learning experience, so particular thanks are in order (and of course, to HFW and Quadrant Chambers).
We’re very proud of our students’ performances, as they should be themselves. The hours of study while also managing a full-time course during a pandemic isn’t easy but they rose brilliantly to the occasion.
Finally, it must be said that organising the event was very much a team effort, with Professors Baughen and Tettenborn, and especially Dr Leloudas, deserving sincere appreciation for their efforts.”
We would like to offer our sincere congratulations to the winners, their dedication, creative legal arguments and fantastic teamwork impressed us all.
Finalists of the Moot
The winning team: Mr Feidi Zeng and Ms Nicole Dele-Alufe
The judges: Mr Paul Dean (Global Head of Shipping, HFW) and Mr Simon Croall KC (Head of Quadrant Chambers)
Winners of the HFW Shipping & Trade Moot Competition 2019
The Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law enjoys close links with those in the industry, including some of the top shipping law firms in the world. This year we had the privilege to host the final of the HFW Shipping & Trade Moot Competition at HFW headquarters in London.
Moot finalists and initial round participants waiting for the judges to enter.
It was a fantastic end to an intense mooting season, providing our top eight LLM mooters with the opportunity to show off their presentation and legal reasoning skills to some of the very best in the business. We were honoured to have as our judges, Quadrant Chamber and long-time Institute member Simon Rainey KC, HFW Senior Partner Paul Dean and Claire Womersley, who unanimously sided with Claimant team in their final decision.
Winners and judges of the HFW Shipping & Trade Moot Final, from left to right: Wu Yirun, Li Yaxin, Paul Dean, Claire Womersley, Simon Rainey KC, Kyriaki Akrita, Jack Ford.
We would like to offer our sincere congratulations to the winners, Mr Jack Ford (Speaker), Ms Yaxin ‘Rose’ Li (Speaker), Mr Yirun ‘William’ Wu (Researcher) and Ms Kyriaki Akrita (Researcher). Their dedication, creative legal arguments and fantastic teamwork impressed us all.
The moot question itself was particularly complex in nature, covering some of the specialised commercial subjects our LLM students have been studying throughout their degree, and thus offering them the chance to put what they’ve been learning into practice. The initial rounds were held during the week prior, with over fifteen teams competing for the top eight places in the final at HFW. Competition was fierce and we are proud to say that, overall, the calibre was very high. This was especially the case in regards to our runners up, Mr Georgios Katonidis (Speaker), Mr Nikola Marki (Speaker), Ms YingYing ‘Ruth’ Wu (Researcher) and Mr Santiago Gimenez-Gil (Researcher), who provided our winners with rigorous opposition.
Runners up with the moot judges.
Last, but certainly not least, we must congratulate Ms Nilasha Raha and Mr Jiake ‘Bruce’ Yin on being the clear winners for the ‘Best Skeleton’ prize. The winners of this award were selected from all the teams who submitted skeleton arguments during the initial rounds.
This concludes our mooting season. We would like to thank all those involved in training and participating in our commercial and maritime moot. We are especially grateful to HFW for their sponsorship, and to the mooting judges who took the time out of their busy schedules to participate in this event. It was an invaluable experience for our students and one that our finalists will certainly never forget!
Swansea won the 3rd Mooting Competition on Commercial & Maritime Law hosted by 7 King’s Bench Walk & Informa Law from Routledge, which attracted 10 teams from Exeter, Sheffield, Nottingham, City University, Coventry, Birkbeck, Bangor and Swansea. The early rounds were held in Swansea with the Final held at Middle Temple Inn in London. Swansea entered two teams, one led by Kirsten Jackson and Jacqueline Dammens and the other led by Ashlee Xi and Breeda Okpo.
Swansea teams with Professor Soyer, Professor Tettenborn, Dr Nikaki, Dr Leloudas and Miss Kurtz-Shefford
The team led by Kirsten and Jacqueline won all their matches in the early rounds, achieving the highest score. They reached the final where they competed against a team from Sheffield. The Swansea team performed in an outstanding fashion winning over the panel of arbitrators. Kirsten Jackson won the Best Speaker Award, the shortlist for Best Speaker included Jacqueline and the shortlist for Best Skeleton Arguments also included Ashlee and Breeda. Such success could not have been achieved without the efforts of Ms Kurtz-Shefford, Swansea's Mooting Coach, who prepared the teams in the best possible way.
The finalists advancing their arguments before the arbitrators
Dr Leloudas, Mooting Co-ordinator for Swansea University, said: “For the 3rd year in a row we are grateful for the support of 7 KBW and Informa law from Routledge, establishing this as the leading commercial/maritime competition in the UK. We are happy to see new teams joining every year, a development that gives us impetus to continue. We are also indebted to the arbitrators, including Mr Justice Picken who gave their valuable time to this event. The Swansea teams made us very proud.”
Kirsten Jackson receiving the Best Speaker award from Dr Leloudas
Swansea LLM students achieved a remarkable success at the 2nd Mooting Competition on Commercial and Maritime Law hosted by 7 King’s Bench Walk, a leading commercial chambers. The event attracted 12 mooting teams from premier law schools. The initial rounds of the Competition were held in Swansea on 20th-21st June. Two teams, one led by Martin Karst/Siddharth Mahajan as speakers and Styliani Kounakou/Maria Skylodimou as researchers, and one led by Marilena Papgrigoraki/ Wuraola Debbie Obiegbu as speakers and Delphine Defossez as a researcher, represented the Shipping and Trade Law Department at the Competition and performed in an outstanding fashion during the initial rounds by winning their matches against mooting teams representing University of Exeter, University of York, University of Birkbeck, University of Liverpool and University of Geneva.
Martin and Siddharth deservedly reached the Final of the Competition, which was held at the Parliament Room of Middle Temple Inn in London on 22 June 2015. Whilst we narrowly lost out to Bristol University in the final, Swansea's mooters had every reason to celebrate with Marilena Papgrigoraki collecting the overall Best Speaker Award. It was a tribute to the Swansea Mooting Coach, Ms Tabetha Kurtz-Shefford, that the shortlist for the Best Speaker Award also contained the names of Martin Karst, Siddharth Mahajan and Wuraola Debbie Obiegbu.
Mr Siddharth Mahajan advancing his arguments before the arbitrators
Commenting after the event, Dr George Leloudas, Mooting Co-ordinator for the Department of Shipping and Trade Law, said: “We are extremely proud and grateful for the generous sponsorship provided by 7 KBW, which gave our students an invaluable opportunity to hone their advocacy skills in commercial and maritime law through this competition. We would also like to thank Informa Law (Routledge) for sponsoring the Best Speaker Award. We are also indebted to the participating arbitrators, who willingly gave of their valuable time for this event, in particular to Mr Justice Picken, for presiding over the panel that judged the Final. Both the speakers and researchers of the Swansea Postgraduate Mooting Teams offered a utterly stellar performance. They made us proud and impressed everyone with their knowledge on commercial and maritime law.”
The Department of Shipping and Trade Law at Swansea's School of Law, very well-known for its pioneering work in teaching and researching serious commercial law, noted with some surprise the complete absence of any national moot competition focusing on commercial and maritime law. The result was the Inaugural Commercial/Maritime Mooting Competition held in June 2014, organised by the Department under the auspices of 7 King's Bench Walk (probably the foremost commercial and shipping set of barristers' chambers) and Informa Law (part of Routledge, and far and away the leading publisher in the field). The event -- involving a fiendish exercise in legal argument and interpretation arising out of multimodal transport -- attracted 10 university student teams from all over the UK, as well as a wide range of arbitrators, solicitors, academics and transport law experts. Initial rounds took place over an intensive weekend in Swansea on 21 and 22 June 2014; the final, between Swansea and Exeter law schools, was held next day on 23 June in the Parliament Chamber of the Middle Temple in front of Mr Justice Flaux, Peter Macdonald-Eggers KC and Simon Pickens KC. After a hard-fought battle Exeter Law School (Richard Mahal and Feng Wang) were held to have prevailed over Swansea (Pernille Kuld-Eriksen and Miss Konstantina Zormpa). The overall best speaker award went to Mr Richard Mahal from the winning Exeter team; the Encouragement Award, sponsored by Swansea Law School's own Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law, was given to the team from Birkbeck College (Devin Frank and Richard O' Keefe).
The awards were presented by Peter Macdonald-Eggers KC (7 KBW) and Professor Baris Soyer (Director of the Institute) at the reception held in the Queen's Room in the Middle Temple immediately after the event.
Professor Soyer, Head of the Department of Shipping and Trade Law, presenting the best speaker prize to Mr Richard Mahal
Speaking after the event, Dr. George Leloudas, who organised the event for Swansea School of Law, said: "I would like to extend a very warm thank to all the teams who joined us at Swansea and made this inaugural competition the success that it was. I must also profusely thank our sponsors 7 KBW and Informa Law for all their assistance, without which none of this could have happened. We are even more grateful that they have already indicated their willingness to continue with the event next year. A moot competition is an invaluable learning process for everyone involved: and for that reason we strove successfully to provide a friendly and open environment that allowed all participants to learn and improve between rounds. Our aim is to retain this philosophy, to carry on the good work in the years to come and contribute to the training of the new generation of transport lawyers. Well done to everyone."