Moot Court Award

The Centro de Estudios Garrigues Moot Court Award 2023/24 is aimed at students in the final year of a bachelor’s degree in law (including dual degrees that include a bachelor’s degree in law) at any Spanish university, provided that legal training is part of their academic programme. There may be more than one team per university.

Participants will be grouped in teams of three to five members from the same university. The maximum number of speakers per team will be three in each round of the hearing phase. The tournament format allows for between six and twelve teams to participate. The different teams compete against each other, representing either the prosecution or the defence, and present their arguments to the court. Therefore, all teams must prepare both procedural positions. All teams must submit their team members’ identification to the organisers before the deadline for filing the prosecution and defence briefs, using the electronic form available on the Centro de Estudios Garrigues Moot Court Award 2023/24 website.

In order to prepare the case, the teams of students can optionally include an adviser/moot coach to help guide the research and development of the team’s communication skills. The moot coach, if there is one, must be arranged by the participating team and must be a legal professional, usually a university professor or lawyer. The moot coach is not considered a member of the team and, therefore, will not be able to take part in the drafting of the written briefs or in the oral hearings. During these hearings, no communication between the coach and the team members is allowed.

Topic: the case

The topic will be related to a current legal controversy. This year’s edition will focus on the field of economic criminal law. The matters presented will concern offences against the public treasury, money laundering, and possible criminal liability of legal persons.

The case will be hypothetical and the subject of a legal controversy that sparks debate among participants and allows for the representation of both positions (prosecution and defence). The defence briefs prepared by the teams are not in response to a specific accusation filed by another teams, but to a hypothetical accusation that could be presented by the opposing party and which must be as complete as possible.

Under no circumstances will there be an exclusive legal ruling in favour of one party. All the facts stated in the case will be considered proven, except those which, by the very nature of the competition, may give rise to legal debate. For those purposes, they will be considered true and, to the extent that documentary evidence is available, alleged and proven, and their legal consideration may only be disputed under applicable rules. Likewise, any facts put forward in the prosecution and defence briefs, including any annexes, as well as in any clarifications published, will be considered true and accurate, unless they are mutually contradictory.

The teams must substantiate their arguments on the basis of legal considerations based on current legislation, jurisprudence, or doctrine applicable at the time the moot court case is presented, and must focus on the resolution of the specific legal issues presented to them. No additional data may be introduced into the competition, except those that may be deduced from the rules of logic and experience.

The competition will be conducted entirely in Spanish — during both written and oral phases — as will all communications made during the tournament.

Object

The goal of this competition is to transform a legal challenge into an opportunity and for the students to develop theoretical and practical skills. To that end, the case discussed concerns legal matters that, due to their newness or recent application in a real case, are generating debate and controversy in the legal world. At the same time, the aim is to foster a spirit of curiosity among participants and to promote the development of legal knowledge and research related to the specific topic in question by applying this topic, in practice, to a particular problem. These initiatives are designed to train the best professionals of tomorrow through the study of different legal matters, while developing oratory techniques in an environment where students with similar profiles can network.

Request for information and registration

Requests for information can be submitted at https://www.centrogarrigues.com/contacto/podemos-ayudarte, and individuals can register by filling in the form on the Centro de Estudios Garrigues Moot Court Award 2023/24 website (https://www.centrogarrigues.com). The application deadline is 12 March 2024.

Each member of a team must register individually by filling in the application form provided. The team leader must also send an email to Marta Montero Simó (marta.montero@centrogarrigues.com) with a list of their team members before the deadline specified above. After the duly filled-in applications for registration and the list of team members are received, an email will be sent to all team members confirming their registration, as well as providing pertinent information about the competition proceedings.

After registration is closed and it has been confirmed that all requirements for participation have been met, the case and any documents relating to the competition will be sent to each of the teams. Applicants who do not receive this confirmation email should assume that their application to this year’s edition has been rejected.

There is no financial cost associated with registration.

Requests for clarification

Requests for clarification and/or any doubts or questions that may arise in relation to the case may be sent to the organisers before the deadline set for this purpose (12 midnight CET). Please refer to the competition schedule.

Requests for clarification must be limited to matters of legal relevance in the context of the problem, with a maximum of five questions per team. Requests must include a brief explanation of the reason for the request. Requests without such an explanation will not be accepted.

Requests for clarification should be submitted to the following email address: anaisabel.serrano@centrogarrigues.com. All clarifications issued by the organisers will be published in the form of a procedural order within ten days of receipt, and will be published on the Centro de Estudios Garrigues Moot Court Award 2022/23 website, where they will be available for review by all participants. The teams are responsible for ensuring that they have reviewed the clarifications. All clarifications issued by the organisers become part of the case.

The entire competition will be conducted in accordance with the rules and/or terms which will be provided to the participating teams upon confirmation of their registration, together with the case brief and the schedule of proceedings. The organisers reserve the right to make any changes that may be necessary due to unforeseen circumstances and to interpret the rules in case of doubt.

The competition will be split into two different elimination phases, similar to the structure of real litigation: first, a written phase; then, an oral phase.

WRITTEN PHASE

This is an elimination phase during which the teams must prepare their written prosecution and defence briefs (with a maximum length of five pages, according to the style guidelines). A template will be provided, along with the evaluation criteria. The documents must be submitted by the teams in Microsoft Word (with the name and surname of every team member) and PDF format (anonymous, with the code provided by the organisers of the competition). The latter is the version that will be filed with the moot court.

Each team will receive a score of 0 to 5 points in the written phase:

4 points for legal content and sound argumentation of the case in both written submissions (2 points for the prosecution brief, 2 points for the defence brief);

1 point for structure and form, legal writing and language, proper spelling, organisation, and clarity of the presentation.

Teams with a score of 3 or more in the written phase will advance to the oral phase.

ORAL PHASE

Three days before the start of the oral phase, each team will be provided with their respective opposing prosecution or defence briefs, so as to better prepare their case and arguments in the oral phase although the main arguments presented in the written phase will also be taken into account.

This oral phase consists of two stages:

• The first group stage consists of four rounds, with all qualifying teams participating in all four rounds. If the number of qualifying teams does not permit this, the goal is for each team to compete at least three times. This first stage’s full schedule of match-ups will be randomly determined before the start of the first round. The teams with the strongest performance on each side will advance to the second stage.
• The second stage will consist of a varying number of rounds, depending on the number of teams that make it past the first stage. This is an elimination stage, with the losing team in each round being eliminated, while the winning team moves on to the next round. In this second stage, the match-up structure will pit the best teams from the previous stage against the worst, with mid-table teams facing each other: team 1 vs team 8, team 2 vs team 7, and so on. The match-ups will play out as outlined above, with teams 1, 2, 3, and 4 representing the prosecution and teams 5, 6, 7, and 8 representing the defence.

Different rounds of intervention will be carried out in each round to establish controversial facts, allegations and conclusions.

In the oral phase, the arguments and facts will be presented by each team to the court over a ten-minute period. Only one participant from each team will be allowed to speak. The team captain will verbally inform the court (no later than fifteen minutes prior to the start of the oral phase) as to which team member will be the speaker. Failure to submit a speaker to the court will be considered a forfeit.

Each round will have a five-minute period for rebuttals, during which each team may reasonably respond to their opponents’ arguments.

Following each team’s presentation and their opponent’s rebuttal, the court will have five minutes to question each team. At the end of the questioning period, the court will indicate the strengths and weaknesses of each teams’ arguments. At the end of the round, after a maximum of thirty minutes for deliberation, the judges will announce the winners of the round, who will advance to the semi-finals.

The four best teams will face each other in the semi-finals, with the same match-up structure as in the previous stage the team with the highest score vs the one with the lowest: team 1 vs team 4, team 2 vs team 3. Teams 1 and 2 will take on the role of defence, while teams 3 and 4 will represent the prosecution. Both the teams and the court will have the same amount of time for presentation, rebuttal, and questioning as in the previous stage.

The top two teams will progress to the final. The role played by each team in the final prosecution or defence will be determined by random draw after the end of the semi-finals.

FINAL ORAL PHASE

The presentation and rebuttal periods will be identical to those in the previous phases.

After hearing the arguments, rebuttals, and answers to their questions, and outlining the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments, the court will have a maximum of fifteen minutes to deliberate on which team had the best performance in the final.

Centro de Estudios Garrigues will provide participants with the case, templates and rules (style guidelines). The court will have full discretion to organise the proceedings and decide on any matters that arise during the competition.

Each team will receive a score of 0 to 5 points in the oral phase:

3 points for content and legal basis of the argument;

2 points for presentation skills, including oratory, intonation, and ability to effectively communicate the team’s arguments to the court.

Any disrespectful behaviour, speaking out of turn, or time-wasting will result in a 1-point deduction. Any team that receives three penalties in a single round will be expelled from the competition.

The points obtained in each phase of the competition will be added up for each participating team. The winner of the Centro de Estudios Garrigues Moot Court Award 2023/24 will be the team with the highest point total.

Each team may be assisted by a legal professional, typically a university professor or a lawyer. The adviser/moot coach may help guide and prepare, but is not considered a member of the team and, therefore, will not be able to take part in the drafting of the written briefs or in the oral hearings. During these hearings, no communication between the coach and the team members is allowed. The hearings will be public, but members of a team other than the speakers and their coaches may not attend the hearings prior to their own. This does not apply to teams that have already competed; if there are other match-ups remaining in that round, they will be able to sit among the public.

The jury of the competition will be a panel of judges, including the academic director of Centro de Estudios Garrigues and other renowned professionals appointed by the Moot Court Committee.

The panel will consist of three judges in the group stage; three or four in quarterfinals and in semifinals; and five in the final. The judges will have to fill in a scoring sheet or evaluation rubric after every match-up to determine each round’s winner. The decision of the panel of judges will be final.

Three categories of prizes will be awarded:

Prize for best team: Scholarship of 50 per cent tuition to study a master’s degree at Centro de Estudios Garrigues. This prize will be awarded to every member of the team that wins the final round of the competition.

Individual prize for best speaker: Scholarship of 25 per cent tuition to study a master’s degree at Centro Estudios Garrigues. This prize will be awarded to the speaker with the highest overall score, which combines their highest score in the role of the prosecution and their highest score in the role of the defence.

Prize for best written submission: This prize will be awarded to the team with the highest overall score, which combines their highest score in the role of the prosecution and their highest score in the role of the defence.

These scholarships are only available for the 2024/25 academic year and are not cumulative with other scholarships, prizes, or grants awarded by Centro de Estudios Garrigues. Prize-winners must provide proof, at the time of their admission to the master’s degree, that they meet the academic or professional requirements.

The jury will announce the prize winners during the closing ceremony. The decision will also be announced on the Centro de Estudios Garrigues website and its official social media.

Transfer of intellectual property rights to Centro de Estudios Garrigues

• All prize-winning participants agree to transfer all intellectual property rights over their submissions exclusively to Centro de Estudios Garrigues, without any type of geographical limitation, for the entire legal term of the rights, including the right to transfer or license them to third parties (such transfers may be total or partial, exclusive or not, with or without compensation) and to make use of them via any channels, media, and/or formats.
• The transfer includes, but is not limited to, rights to reproduce, distribute, disseminate to the public (including making them available to the public interactively and on demand), and modify the submissions (including the right to create derivative works) in any form and in any format, including hardback, trade paper, paperback, digital (e.g. on the Centro de Estudios Garrigues blog), periodicals, reviews, promotional editions, print on demand, or any other that Centro de Estudios Garrigues considers necessary to maximise the dissemination of the works.
• Under no circumstances will the publication of the submissions entitle the authors to any kind of economic rights.
• The transfer of rights regulated herein refers to the economic rights over the prize-winning submissions, but does not extend to any moral rights that may apply, which Centro de Estudios Garrigues will undertake to observe and respect.
• Should Centro de Estudios Garrigues fail to publish the prize-winning submissions within a period of one (1) year from the date of notification of prizes, it will forfeit the exclusivity agreed herein and the prize-winning participants may, whether or not in partnership with Centro de Estudios Garrigues and/or third parties authorised by it, publish the prize-winning submissions.

Guarantees

• All prize-winning participants agree to be liable to Centro de Estudios Garrigues as to the lawful exercise of the rights transferred by virtue of this document, affirming that they have not entered into and will not enter into any agreements or obligations of any kind and that the prize-winning works do not infringe and will not infringe on any third-party rights.
• The prize-winning participants exonerate Centro de Estudios Garrigues from any liability and undertake to indemnify it against any judicial and/or extrajudicial claims arising from the non-fulfilment of the guarantees provided herein.
• Moreover, the prize-winning participants undertake to sign any additional documents that may be requested by Centro de Estudios Garrigues to validate or confirm this transfer of rights.

The personal data of participants in the Centro de Estudios Garrigues Moot Court Award 2023/24 will be processed in accordance with the information provided in the registration forms and other specific documents containing information or consent to process the data in connection with the award. Participants must expressly authorise Centro de Estudios Garrigues to use their names and image for the sole purpose of promoting the award and publishing the submissions.

Submission of a paper to this competition constitutes full and unconditional acceptance of these terms and conditions.