It was only a few weeks after the autumn leaves started to turn red when our coaches (Claudia Kück, Fabian Paehr and Monty Silley) introduced us to the art of mediation. Now spring is around the corner (or supposed to be) and not only months of training, but also the ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition 2017, lies behind us.
Accompanied by Claudia Kück and Mr. Silley, we – Katharina “Hands on the Table” Tisch, Jakob “Team Jacob” Dürr, Änne “Ännergy” Isfort and Jannis “Varoufakis” Graeve – arrived in Paris to join 500 other participants from across the globe. Every year the International Chamber of Commerce welcomes 66 university teams and, besides the Competition, provides a platform for them to meet each other as well as top professional mediators.
Our first mediation was with a team from Istanbul where we represented a university in a construction dispute when tiles began falling off our new building. The next day we went against Oxford, by representing a retired rock star who was planning a comeback but was also accused of copying a tune from a not-so-famous band. After that, we mediated with Maastricht, as a small technology start-up that was being sued by a big sports apparel company. And finally, we faced a team from Saskatchewan in a case about the delivery of deficient wood pellets for clean energy.
The announcement that we made it through to the Final Rounds of 16 came at about 10pm during the Middle Cocktail. So we had to head home early to prepare for the next morning. We represented a disgruntled employee in a complicated post-merger reorganization opposite Cornell University, a very tough opponent. Nevertheless, after an extremely close session, we managed to win and went on to the Quarter-Finals. Then, as an economically-minded property developer, we faced a team from Beirut that had a highly-emotional style, which admittedly caught us off-guard. We lost that round and dropped out of the Competition. The next day we watched a great Final and caught-up on much neglected sleep.
Returning to Hamburg we were congratulated by President Boele-Woelki for advancing so far and finishing as the best European team. We are very grateful to everyone that supported us. That goes especially to Dr. Boesch of Taylor Wessing, who polished our mediation technique for each case, Jan Lohse and Lorenz Schuwerack who organized the Bucerius Mediation Moot, and Max Ruderer for additional training. We also thank our coaches for the amazing experience.
