Willem C. Vis Moot

The Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot is a competition for law students. It simulates an arbitration proceeding, in which the participating students act as counsel for both parties, write briefs and prepare oral arguments. Nearly 400 student teams from all over the world compete every year.

learn more about the competition

Vis Moot Team Fribourg made history at the Willem C. Vis Moot Court in Vienna

Congratulations to Team Fribourg for reaching new heights, including winning the prestigious Pieter Sanders Award for the Best Memorandum for Claimant for the first time in history: the 1^st place out of almost 400 strongest law schools from both common law and civil law jurisdictions!

The 32d Willem C. Vis Moot Court, also known as "Olympic Games for law students", was a gerat success for the Fribourg Team. The University of Fribourg was represented by Selda Barcedogmus (2 BLaw), Viviane Molletta (2 BLaw), Tim Hogg (3 BLaw) and their Coach Vera Bykova (LLM). The Fribourg Team is supervised by Professor Fountoulakis Christiana, Chaire de droit civil I, and coordinated by Graduate Research Assistant, Louis Wéry.

The Awards Ceremony culminated in the following prizes not only for outstanding oral advocacy, but also for exceptional written advocacy skills of the team:

• Pieter Sanders Award (1^st place out of 400 participating teams): for the first time in the history of the competition, Team Fribourg won the award for the Best Memorandum for Claimant in the world. The Memorandum of our Team will be soon published on the official website of the competition as a gold standard of drafting for future generations.
• Werner Melis Award (Honorable Mention): our Team has reaffirmed its success of previous years by receiving an Honorable Mention for the Best Memorandum for Respondent.
• Eric Bergsten Award (Honorable Mention): Fribourg Team qualified for the Final (Advanced) Rounds of the oral advocacy competition (top 10% of the strongest teams out of almost 400 teams from both common and civil law jurisdiction). This achievement reaffirms the strong oral advocacy skills of our students, who had reached Top-8 (Octa-Finals) Rounds in the previous moot season.
• Martin Domke Award (Honorable Mention): one of our brilliant advocates, Viviane Molletta (2 BLaw), received a personal award of one of the Best Advocates out of 2502 participating students.

This success is a testament to the dedication and hundreds of hours of work of the entire Team. The Dean of the Faculty of Law invited the Team and their Coach to celebrate these outstanding achievements and give out personal awards at the Graduation Ceremony in July 2025.

If you are a law student and you want to join the Fribourg Team next year, please consult the following page: www.unifr.ch/ius/fountoulakis/fr/enseignement/willemvismoot/application.html