The Pax Moot teams solved the “impossible” case of SSF versus Telerel and the Watermelon companies

The Ulrich Huber round of the Pax Moot competition ended on Friday in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion, at the University of Maastricht to be precise.

During three fierce days 34 Moot teams from all over Europe and as far as Georgia, Kazakhstan, India, Singapore and Uzbekistan pleaded against each other. They argued about whether self-employed content moderators for social media companies could be considered employees; about how to locate the damage that consists of the stress and mental health harm suffered by these digital nomads; about whether a UK subsidiary of an Irish company could be considered to be domiciled in the EU; about whether the proceedings instituted by a foundation under the Dutch WAMCA should be characterised as contract or tort; about whether a settlement in front of a UK court could be recognised under the 2019 Hague Judgments Convention and much more. They relied on old and new case law, reports and legal scholarship.

At the end, the University of Ljubljana won the competition, with Jindal Law School as the runner-up. The other two teams that made it to the semi-finals were the Universities of Sofia and Paris-Saclay.

The prize for the best memorials went to ESADE Law School, with the University of Ghent in second place, and Paris Dauphine and Sofia Universities in shared third places.

Jana Ušen won the best pleader’s award, followed by Brin Smole, both of Ljubljana University. In the third position was Joshua Tan and in fourth Ong Xin Yan, both of Singapore Management University.

Under the inexhaustible leadership of Marta Pertegás, expect the Pax team to be back with a new case in October/November, to be pleaded in Sofia in roughly one year’s time. Pax Moot is co-funded b y the European Commission.