Spectacular International Success at CIETAC Cup: MCC's VisMoot Team wins Third Prize, while Dávid Horváth receives Best Individual Oralist Award in Beijing

CIETAC (China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission) organized its 23rd annual arbitration moot competition, one of the world's most prestigious private law arbitration competition’s finals between November 28 and December 5, 2025, and MCC students achieved great success. At the award ceremony held in Beijing, following several months of preparation for the written and oral rounds, our team consisting of Sára Andor, Dorottya Haraszti, Dávid Horváth, Zétény Staudt, Karina Fodor, and Zalán Szabó won the Third Prize, awarded to the top 15% of teams, while Dávid Horváth received the General Rounds Best Individual Oralist Award, the latter given to the student who delivered the best oral argument among the top thirty.

The CIETAC Cup is traditionally the largest and most demanding preliminary competition for the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot and the Willem C. Vis East International Commercial Arbitration Moot, as both the claimant's and the respondent's preparatory documents must be submitted one month before the deadline for the main international competitions. Apart from MCC, the European team that won an award was University College London, which received Second Prize. These outstanding results suggest that MCC will be traveling to the finals in Vienna and Hong Kong in the spring with a powerful team, where we hope to continue our successful run from last year. As always, the team's coaches are Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. István Varga, Head of the Center for Private Law, whose lectures on international commercial arbitration at the University of Leipzig were also attended by the team members as part of their preparation, and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Helmut Rüssmann, professor emeritus at Saarland University, who plays a key role in preparing the team in substantive law.