José María Almada, an important member of Gardhí Vila, won Honorable Mention for developing the Best Defendant Memorandum for the Twelfth Annual Willem C. Vis (East) International Commercial Arbitration Moot held during the month of March in Hong Kong.
The prestigious International Commercial Arbitration contest is organized every year in two locations: Hong Kong and Vienna (Austria); law students from all over the world arrive to the contest with the intention of proving their oral and writing skills as well as their knowledge of the global conventions and treaties.
This year, José María Almada was one of the team members representing the Universidad Panamericana Campus Guadalajara which was the only Mexican team that attended the contest on Hong Kong.
The contest consists on two main phases, the written phase and the oral phase. The written phase is evaluated by internationally renowned arbitrators.
"The case was published on October 3, and in December 11 we had to send the memorandum for claimant", José María says.
"In late December or early January, we received another team’s memorandum and we had to answer it as the defendant, once these two steps are completed, we start preparing for the oral hearings in Hong Kong".
Contestants who make it to Hong Kong are faced with other student teams with a high level of knowledge and preparation. The general rounds take place during 4 days and the arbitrators elect the 32 teams that had the highest scores.
"They start the eliminatory rounds, this year edition had the participation of more than 120 universities from all around the world", he explains.
The team of José María Almada won Honorable Mention for Best Defendant’s Memorandum for the Twelfth Annual Willem C. Vis (East) International Commercial Arbitration Moot held during the month of March in Hong Kong.
Gardhí Vila Lawyers is proud of the achievement of our colleague José María Almada.
Congratulations on this success, we are sure that this is the first of many more to come!

José María Almada is part of our team of practice in International Arbitration, Intellectual Property and Corporate law: jose.almada@gardhivila.com.