Oxford wins the 2019 French Moot

The 2019 edition of the Oxford French Moot was held on 11 March. Sixteen teams from across the world debated a problem of French law which this year centred around a case involving exploding bottles of (French) champagne causing injury to a client of a posh Parisian hair salon. The French Moot is unique in that the problem is debated in French by teams whose first language is not French.

As usual the Moot was extremely competitive with a hard fought final between teams from King's College London (Alice Dunglas and Margaretha Weigel) and Oxford (Lukas Gwozdz (Magdalen) and George Twinn (St Hilda’s)). Of the winning Oxford team the president of the judges, Jean-Guy Huglo, a Dean at the French Supreme Court, said: ’In addition to excellent skills in legal analysis, they demonstrated authority and intellectual flexibility’. The KCL team was mentored by Dr Eva Steiner and the Oxford team by graduate students Liane Huttner and Olga Giakouminaki who are spending the year at the Institute of European and Comparative Law under its agreement with the Maison Française d’Oxford.

The Moot was once again generously supported by the French law firm Gide Loyrette Nouel which offers a short internship to the winning team.

Congratulations to Lukas and George and to all those who took part in the Moot!