NUS Law Wins IMLAM Competition for the Fifth Time

Congratulations to the NUS Law team who emerged as champions of the 18th International Maritime Law Arbitration Moot! The team featuring Douglas Lok ’17, Nicholas Tan ’18, Law Jia Hao ’17, Leung Liwen ’17 and Wang Yufei ’17, won the hard-fought Grand Final against the University of Queensland (UQ) on 5 July 2017. Douglas Lok was also named “Best Speaker in the General Rounds”.

This was NUS Law’s fifth win in this competition; the previous wins were in 2000, 2001, 2010, and 2015 (runners-up in 2004 and 2013). This year’s win has a special significance, being the first win in Singapore for an NUS team in the competition. NUS previously hosted the competition in 2004 and 2011 but this was also the first occasion that the Centre for Maritime Law hosted the competition on behalf of the faculty.

The oral rounds were the culmination of six months of hard work for the 26* participating law schools. The competitors argued four times in General Rounds, twice for the claimant and twice for the respondent. At the conclusion of the General Rounds, the eight schools that were ranked the highest proceeded to the Quarter Finals. In the Quarter Finals, the four schools that were ranked the highest proceeded to the Semi-Final Rounds. The Semi-Finals, held at Maxwell Chambers, were between Singapore Management University and NUS Law (NUS won), and Hong Kong University and University of Queensland (University of Queensland won).

The Grand Final was held in the National Gallery Singapore last night and was judged by a panel comprising Justice Belinda Ang (Judge of the Supreme Court), Mr Andrew Moran QC, a leading regional arbitrator, and member of the Arbitration Chambers Singapore, and Sir Bernard Rix, retired judge of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of England & Wales and an International Judge of the Singapore International Commercial Court. All members of the panel were tremendously impressed by our mooters.

The team was coached by Ian Teo ’01 and Dedi Affandi ’10, respectively Partner and Senior Legal Associate at Rajah & Tann. Both Ian and Dedi were, incidentally, members of the winning NUS teams in, respectively, 2001 and 2010!

*The participating law schools included 3 from Australia (Murdoch, University of Queensland and Sydney), 6 from Europe (Erasmus, Exeter, Koc, Le Havre, Madrid, Versailles); 1 from Hong Kong (HKU), 8 from India (Gujarat NLU, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha U, Hidayatullah NLU, NALSAR, NLU of India University, NU of Advanced Legal Studies, West Bengal NUJS), 4 from Indonesia (U Airlangga, U Indonesia, U Padjadjaran, U Gadjah Mada), 1 from Malaysia (UM), 2 from Singapore (SMU and NUS), and 1 from Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka Law College)