The Russian Arbitration Association (RAA) and the Russian Arbitration Association 25 held the ninth online arbitration moot court competition. This was a remote event, which allowed students from across the CIS region to showcase their abilities to leading legal practitioners and to compete with their peers from diverse universities. The preliminary rounds of the competition featured 56 teams from 35 universities representing 21 cities, making it once again one of the largest moot courts in the CIS.

According to the results of the preliminary stage, the best 24 teams were invited to participate in the face-to-face rounds, which took place in Moscow in August 2024.

This year, the law firm Rybalkin, Gortsunyan, Dyakin and Partners (RGD) was the strategic partner of the event.

RGD was represented by Alexander Lazarev, partner at Dispute Resolution Practice and a Co-Head of Reputation Recovery Practice; Vadim Vunukainen, counsel; Anton Komogorov, associate; Alexander Poychenko, associate; and Andrey Chaika, junior associate. They acted as arbitrators.

Teams were coached by senior associate Evgeny Voronin and associate Andrey Chaika, as well as by paralegal Sofya Nikulina and intern Polina Ostranitsa. Two of the teams coached by RGD took home awards.

In the Best Team and Best Review category, first place went to Team No. 3 from HSE University, which included Natalia Lukovskaya, Maxim Mushta, Dmitry Lavrenov, Sofya Medyanik, and Rolan Kamalov. They were coached by Andrey Chaika, Pyotr Radzishevsky, and Dmitry Yepoyan.

Shared with students from Kutafin Moscow State Law University, third place went to Team No. 13 from HSE University, which also took first place in the Best Claim category. The team included Stepan Rozhkov, Tatyana Zaitseva, Ekaterina Markova, Polina Ganyagina, and Artem Gritsuk. The team was coached by Grigory Dorofeev, Sofya Nikulina, and Darya Grishina.

"We are incredibly proud of the students’ achievements in this prestigious international law competition and believe their success is the result of both hard work and deep interest in legal research. Supporting young talents and participating in initiatives like moot courts is especially important to us, as it helps build a stronger legal community and opens up new opportunities for students. We believe these victories strengthen their commitment to professional development and lay a strong foundation for future success in their legal careers," said RGD partner Alexander Lazarev.

A significant milestone for the competition in 2024 was its partnership with the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC). This year’s arbitration hearings were conducted based on SIAC’s rules.