RGNUL Punjab emerges as runners-up of South Asia Regionals of the FDI International Arbitration Moot

Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab emerged as the runners-up of the South Asian Regional Rounds (internationalised) of the Foreign Direct Investment International Arbitration Moot, 2022 organised by the Center for International Legal Studies.

The Preliminary Rounds of the competition were held from 19-21 August, 2022 and the Advanced Rounds (eliminators) were conducted from 26–28 August, 2022 virtually.

The team comprised of Bhavya Kala, Jubin Malawat, Rohan Gajendra Pratap Singh, Rachit Somani and Harshit Bhimrajka.

The team was coached by Tushar Behl, independent counsel at Delos Institute of Arbitration, Paris.

The competition witnessed a participation of more than 26 teams across the South Asian Region and the top four teams qualified to the FDI Global Rounds (In-Person) scheduled to be held at King's College, London in the first week of November 2022. The other three teams to have qualified to the globals include Lloyd law College, NLIU Bhopal and MNLU Nagpur.

The finals was a face off between Lloyd Law College as Claimant and RGNUL, Punjab as the Respondent and was live streamed on YouTube. The third place and fifth place match were also conducted simultaneously.

The moot problem was based on a cannabis sector investment in a host state which got destroyed because of the situation of armed conflict and civil war within the country. The problem contemplates an investor-State arbitration under the ICSID Convention and raised broader questions on the issues of Res Judicata, Exhaustion of Local Remedies (ELR), Full Protection and Security (FPS), Extended War Clause and Moral Damages.

The team discussing its achievement, said “the moot problem was cleverly drafted and the issues were framed in such a way that it was a challenging task to incapsulate them all in a single arbitral proceeding. Additionally, none of the team members had any prior experience of investment arbitration moots which made it an even difficult test at the oral rounds. This would not have been possible without the constant support of Mr. Tushar who guided us throughout our preparation of the moot”

This note was shared by Campus Ambassador Nandini Mishra.