Sofia Vis Pre-Moot was held in the BCCI

Between 16 – 18. 02 February the BCCI hosted the 4^th edition of the Sofia VIS Pre-Moot - a competition for students with focus on international commercial arbitration and international sale of goods. Sofia Pre-Moot is a simulated arbitration process related to the implementation of the UN Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG). It is conducted in English and aims to allow the participating universities to prepare their teams for the 25th Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot in Vienna - the world's largest moot court competition.

The sponsors of the event are the Association of Independent Wine Growers, the Bulgarian law firm Tsvetkova Bebov Komarevski and the Bulgarian office of the Austrian law firm Schoenherr.

The competition was opened with a conference dedicated to actual problems of the international commercial arbitration. At the conference, there were speakers from Bulgaria and Switzerland - lawyers and arbitrators made a series of presentations in the field of the international commercial arbitration and international commercial law. The presentations addressed the fundamental issues related to arbitration (Mr Marko Stacher); the liability of arbitrators (Eleonora Mateina) and the trends in investment arbitration in the field of the renewable energy sources (Deyan Dragiev).

The conference was opened by the President of the Court of Arbitration at the BCCI - Mr. Blagovest Punev, who congratulated the participants and expressed the constant and unwavering support of the BCCI for the event and the development of the legal education.

Sofia VIS Pre Moot continued Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th February, when a total of 42 rounds were held, where more than 30 arbitrators from the country and abroad took part. We are proud to share that this year we had 7 participating teams - Switzerland, Italy, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and, of course, the two Bulgarian universities - Sofia University and Veliko Tarnovo University.

After two days of hard work, the teams and the arbitrators expressed their appreciation for the event, emphasizing the good organization, the excellent conditions at the BCCI and the high level of the rounds.

BCCI and the Association for International Moot Court Competitions intend to continue this tradition in 2019, but meanwhile we wish good luck in Vienna to all 7 teams!