Commercial arbitration is the future of legal practice, and you should get involved.' In essence, that was the message that caught the interest of five National University of Singapore ('NUS') law students. So, in March this year, six representatives from the NUS Law Faculty - Samuel Ang, Chia Voon Jiet, Jean Ho, Eugene Phua and myself, together with our coach, Associate Professor Gary Bell - left Singapore for Vienna to participate in the 9th Annual William C Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot. Returning to Singapore as the winners was a great feeling, but it still came second to having gone through our first experience with international commercial arbitration.
As law students, it is sometimes easy to forget that Singapore is just a small part of a very much larger world. Especially with exams nearing, students sometimes start believing that there is no more to life than passing exams or getting through the academic readings. The Vis Moot disabused us of such notions in short order. Over a hundred universities participated in this year's competition - 108, from 36 different countries, to be exact. Among those participating were more than a few well-known universities. Taking the United States contingent as an example, we met teams from the universities of Harvard, Cornell and Columbia. A quick browse at the party goers at the Welcome Reception during the competition's official opening further revealed teams from the Russian Federation, Switzerland, China, South Africa, Germany and France, to name just a few.
Over the course of the competition, we faced teams from all over the world in arguing a case of international sale of goods between two fictitious companies. We also found ourselves facing the visiting lawyers and professors who fly to Vienna each year to serve as judges for the competition, all of whom wanted intelligent responses to their queries on jurisdiction, contractual construction and performance. It is safe to say that we would never have been able to survive - much less win - the competition without the help of lawyers in the leading firms here in Singapore who gave us a crash course on the do's and don'ts of international commercial litigation. The NUS Vis Team of 2002 would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people who so generously gave of their time to help a bunch of law students navigate their way through the exciting and complex world of international commercial arbitration.
What did we get out of this entire experience? We were the first team from Singapore to participate in the moot at all, to say nothing of being the first Singaporean team to win the competition. We were the first Asian team to emerge as champions, and the first team to ever win the championship on its first attempt. All that would be reward enough. But there was still the bonus - we each took back memories of Wienerschnitzel (the unhealthiest pork cutlet ever conceived), e-mail addresses of new friends and the satisfaction of having in a small way contributed to Singapore's ever-growing reputation in international commercial arbitration.
Jason Chan
National University of Singapore