The Grand Final of the inaugural Maitland Chambers Inter-collegiate (Cuppers) Mooting Competition

The Grand Final of the inaugural Maitland Chambers University of Oxford Undergraduate Inter-collegiate (Cuppers) Mooting Competition was held in Mansfield College Chapel on Friday 27 February 2009. The teams from University and Worcester Colleges were delighted that the Rt Hon. the Lord Mance generously devoted his time and expertise to preside at the moot.

Competitors from many of the seventeen Colleges that participated in the preliminary stages of the five-round competition joined members of the Faculty and representatives from Maitland Chambers to watch the moot, which focused on two tort principles expressed by the Latin maxims ex turpi causa non oritur actio (an action does not arise out of a wrong) and novus actus interveniens (the doctrine of a new intervening act in causation).

The appellant team of Toby Boncey and Emma Fenn defeated respondent counsel Edmond Boullé and Kerby Lau, to ensure that Worcester College’s name was the first to appear on the Championship Cup, now displayed in the Bodleian Law Library. The standard of legal research and advocacy skills displayed in the moot was exceptional, and the competition promises to become a fertile source of great mooters in years to come. Maitland Chambers was pleased to offer Toby and Emma the opportunity to undertake a mini-pupillage later this year.

The competition is administered jointly by the Law Faculty and the Law Joint Consultative Committee, whose Mooting Representative David Thomas contributed a considerable amount of time and energy this year. The competition also involved many tutors and postgraduate students in the Faculty, whose assistance as judges in the preliminary rounds of the contest is much appreciated. The Faculty is particularly grateful to Lord Mance for judging the Grand Final moot and to Maitland Chambers for their support of the cuppers competition.

Winners: Worcester College (Emma Fenn and Toby Boncey )