NUJS-Herbert Smith National Corporate Law Moot Competition

From 19-21 February, 2010, teams from all across India competed in the national final of the NUJS-Herbert Smith National Corporate Law Moot Competition. The competition was sponsored and funded through the generosity of Herbert Smith, a law firm which heavily invests in, and supports, law and law students in India.

During this weekend, the finest Indian students converged upon the National University of Juridical Sciences in Kolkata to moot a complex problem involving a conflict of laws. The conflict arose between a Kolkata Scheme of Arrangement for a major joint venture involving a large Kolkata public work and a Delaware court order sanctioning reverse corporate piercing and asset consolidation of the group of which the joint venture company was a part.

After producing very detailed written memorials and several days of intense mooting two teams emerged in the Grand Final. The final was judged by two experienced partners of Herbert Smith (Hardeep Nahal and Chris Parsons), the Faculty Mooting Officer at Oxford (James Edelman) and Mr Justice Mukherjee of the High Court of Kolkata. The questioning of the teams was intense, with several of the four mooters being allowed almost double their allotted time in order only to answer a barrage of questions. The standard was extremely high and the performance of the mooters was a testament to the strength and quality of corporate law in Indian Universities. In a very close result the team from National Academy of Legal Studies and Research in Hyderabad prevailed. At a post-moot career session many of the students expressed a strong desire to study in Oxford and/or practise at leading English law firms such as Herbert Smith.

PHOTO (L to R): Hardeep Nahal (Herbert Smith), Chris Parsons (Herbert Smith), Tarun Gopalakrishnan (NALSAR, Hyderabad) , Jagdish Menezes (NALSAR, Hyderabad), Nehaa Chaudhari (NALSAR, Hyderabad), James Edelman (University of Oxford)