TNNLU National Med-Arb Competition
TNNLU National Med-Arb Competition
TNNLU National Med-Arb Competition
The Tamil Nadu National Law University has always considered ADR an important dispute
resolution mechanism and has aimed at conditioning the law students to efficiently resolve
such disputes.
In pursuance to its goal, the TNNLU through its Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee
(ADRC) cordially invites all the law students to participate in its 2nd National Med-Arb
Competition to be held at the TNNLU Campus from 31st January 2020 to 2nd February 2020.
This distinct hybrid of Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanism aims at nurturing the
upcoming members of the Indian legal fraternity and to enable them to brace themselves for
the dynamic Indian Justice System.
IMPORTANT DATES
This competition consists of two separate rounds of Mediation and Arbitration. The team
portraying the role of Client- Counsel in the Mediation rounds will become the Counsels
in the Arbitration rounds. The participant portraying the role of a Mediator in the
Mediation rounds will become the Arbitrator in the Arbitration Rounds. All the
participants will be judged by a separate panel of Judges in both the rounds.
II. DEFINITIONS
a. “Clarifications” refers to procedural order(s) and/or any clarification(s) issued
by ADRC.
b. “Speaker” refers to a participant who presents oral arguments in any given
round of the arbitration competition.
c. “Oral Rounds” refers to a team’s pleadings submitted by both the speakers
before the panel of arbitrators/ arbitral tribunal on behalf of one of the parties
against the opponent party.
d. “Penalty” refers to the deductions imposed on the participating
team/individual in breach of any rules, as provided by ADRC.
e. “Plagiarism” refers to the direct or substantial duplication of the work from
the memorial of any other team through offline or online source(s).
f. “Preliminary Rounds” refers to the initial oral rounds for the purpose of
determining the scores and ranks of the participants based on the average
scores in both mediation and arbitration competition.
g. “Scouting” refers to the act of a person observing the sessions/oral rounds of a
team other than the team he/she is a part of.
h. “Tribunal” means a collective reference to the arbitrators present at the oral
round, where an “arbitrator” is an adjudicator of the oral rounds.
i. “Written submissions” means the written arguments submitted by each team
participating in arbitration competition, according to these Rules.
The competition will be solely conducted in English language. All the law students
currently pursuing three-year LL.B. or five-year LL.B. are eligible to participate in the
V. CLARIFICATIONS
Clarifications shall be sent to [email protected]. The subject line should be
“Clarifications: Problems or Rules”.
ii. All the teams are requested to send a soft copy of both the written submissions in the PDF
format at
https://forms.gle/t9bV8yLMEPVgM2CQ6
iii. Teams are required to submit 6 sets of written submissions from both Claimant and
Respondent side. It must be printed double-sided on A4 size sheets, with an equal margin of
at least one inch on all sides. It is mandatory to mention “Claimant” or “Respondent” on the
cover page along with team codes mentioned at the top right corner of the page.
iv. The hard copies can be soft or spiral bound. Any changes witnessed in the hard copy visà-
vis the soft copy will entail disqualification. The decision of ADRC will be final in this
regard.
Each Written submission must contain all of, and only, the following components in the
following order:
▪ Cover page;
▪ Table of Contents;
▪ Table of Abbreviations;
▪ Index of Authorities;
▪ Statement of Jurisdiction;
▪ Statement of Facts
▪ Issues Raised;
▪ Summary of Arguments;
▪ Prayer.
i. Text font for the Arguments Advanced and Prayer, including that of all headings and
subheadings, must be Times New Roman, size 12 with 1.5 line spacing and the text
must be justified.
ii. The footnote style to be followed must be 19th Edition Blue Book Citation and text
font of the footnotes must be Times New Roman, size 10 with 1.0 line spacing and the
text must be justified.
iii. There must be no additional space between two footnotes. Character spacing should
not be condensed in any manner.
The arbitrators are required to draft an award, in accordance with the Arbitration and
Conciliation Act, 1996 (Act) after each arbitration session. The award shall be
prepared by the participants who have registered as Mediator/Arbitrator after the oral
submissions of both the parties in the Arbitration Preliminary Rounds i.e. on 1st
February, 2020. However, the arbitral award shall broadly contain the following (page
limit 2-6 pages):
1) Heading
2) Date, Identification of the parties and method of appointment of arbitrator
3) Nature of award
4) Brief on nature of the dispute
5) Brief on procedure adopted
6) Issues of facts and law
7) Summary of both parties contentions
8) Relevant facts and laws applicable
9) Reasons and Conclusion
10) Interest and liability if, with cost
11) Finality and Enforceability
Note: Arbitral Award Includes an Interim Award, as defined under the Arbitration and
Conciliation Act, 1996. However, unless required, Arbitrators are not expected to
draft interim awards.
X. ORAL ROUNDS
All the teams shall participate in both the sessions (a Mediation Session followed by an
Arbitration session) in all the rounds (Prelims, Semi-Finals & Finals).
a) There will be two preliminary rounds for Mediation and two preliminary rounds for
Arbitration.
b) The participants acting as Arbitrators for a particular session shall individually prepare an
arbitral award within the allotted time after the Arbitration session.
c) Time Allotted:
ii. Arbitration Session – 30 Minutes + 2 minutes for Rebuttals and Sur-rebuttal per
team.
iv. Time allotted for the entire round – Maximum of 150 Minutes
vi. Post-Mediation Session [3 mins each]. During this Session, the judges may ask
questions to the teams.
i. A caucus session will be conducted by the mediators with one Advocate - Client Team at a
time in the absence of the other team. Here, the parties in the caucus session can freely share
their interests, position, strategies and goals with the Mediator. Sharing of any information
with any other team(s) will lead to immediate disqualification.
ii. During the conference session, both the parties shall remain in the room and shall try to
resolve the dispute through negotiation. f) Release of Confidential Information Confidential
information for the mediation session shall be released 20 minutes prior to the
commencement of the session.
NOTE: Only notes taken by arbitrators during the course of the oral rounds shall be admitted.
XII. PENALTIES
XIII. AWARDS
Participation certificates will be given to all the participants. Following awards will be
distributed during the valedictory ceremony:
For any queries, feel free to drop us an email at [email protected] or contact the following: