University of Lausanne continued its participation in the world famous Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot, this time in the XXIII instalment of the Moot and for the 9th consecutive time altogether. This year’s Moot included 312 participating universities from 67 countries from all over the world.
The Team of the University of Lausanne was represented by Theresia Kloetzli, Romain Venard, Tifaine Hostettler and Mehdi Hajilou.
The Team has been coached by Sofia Drug-Villaverde and Sergii Drug under the supervision of Professor Andrea Bonomi.
The participation of the University of Lausanne has been a great success, marked with an award of an honourable mention in the competition for Pieter Sanders Award for the Best Memorandum supporting the position of Claimant (for the 4th consecutive time), as well as an honourable mention in the competition for the Werner Mellis Award for the Best Memorandum supporting the position of Respondent (for the 2nd time).
With this achievement, University of Lausanne becomes one of the sixteen universities in the world that received mentions for both memoranda in the XXIII Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot.
On top of that, with its 4th consecutive honourable mention for the Memorandum for Claimant, the University of Lausanne has become one of the two universities in the world to do so in the past four editions of the Moot, alongside with the University of Freiburg, Germany.
The Problem of the XXIII Moot concerned the complex issue of the recoverability of the legal costs as damages as well as the disgorgement of profits under the CISG. The Problem also dealt with the issue of the document production and its scope in international commercial arbitration. The Moot Problem can be accessed on the Moot website.
Sergii Drug is a former Moot participant (2013 -2014) and a coach of the UNIL team (2014-2016). Mr. Drug holds LL.M. degree inthe International and European Economic and Commercial Law from the University of Lausanne as well as Bachelor and Master in Law from the Kyiv University, Ukraine and currently is a doctoral candidate at the University of Lausanne. His practical experience includes practicing in an international law firm as well as an in-house legalcounsel. 
Theresia Kloetzli is a master student at the University of Lausanne enrolled in the bilingual program offered in cooperation with the University of Zurich. Theresia originally comes from Vienna, but pursued all of her studies in Switzerland. She has obtained her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Bern and has gained first working experiences through two internships in a Swiss company. Being a native German speaker, she also speaks fluent English and French. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, skiing and reading.
Tifaine Hostettler is a master student at the University of Lausanne, specializing in commercial law. She holds a Bachelor in Law degree from the said University; and has been performing various works in a notary’s office for over 3 years. Tifaine is a native Swiss; her mother tongue is French and she has a good knowledge of German language. As she lived six years in the United States, she is fluent in English as well. Some of Tifaine’s personal interests are hiking, yoga and backpacking.
Mehdi Hajilou is an LL.M. student at the University of Lausanne, enrolled in the International & European Commercial Law program. Originally from Iran, his academic and practical experience are business oriented, having an MBA and more than 10 years of professional experience as the Contract Manager of a private company in Iran. His main area of interest is commercial law, focusing on the contracts. His mother tongue is Persian, yet he has a good command of English as he has lived in Great Britain for 6 years, and he also speaks basic Turkish and Arabic. He is found of travelling and his hobbies include swimming, tennis, mountain climbing and reading.
