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For the eleventh year running, the firm has sponsored the NUJS – HSF National Corporate Law Moot Court Competition in India. The competition was held from 25 to 27 January 2019 at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) in Kolkata, India.

The moot has grown to be one of the most prestigious moot competitions in India with participation from students from leading law universities, and has raised the profile of our firm among students and universities in the country.

The moot problem was Niranjan Venkatesan a dual India and England qualified lawyer at One Essex Court. It focused on issues like director's duties, conflicts of laws and the defence of illegality in civil claims.

Chris Parsons, chairman of the India practice, and Nicholas Peacock, head of India Disputes, flew down to Kolkata to judge the finals of the competition along with Justice Arindham Mukherjee of the Calcutta High Court and Shruti Rajan, a partner at law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. Other judges at the competition included leading lawyers from Indian law firms and the bar, and in-house counsel from ITC and Uber.

This edition saw the highest number of teams taking part, counting 24 in total, and the highest proportion of female lawyers judging the competition. In a testament to our long partnership with NUJS, two lawyers who won a previous edition of the competition as students joined the pool of judges in this edition.

The team from the National Law University of Orissa won the moot, and Riya Singh from NLIU Bhopal won the best speaker award (pictured below).

Last year, to celebrate a decade of the competition, the firm published a collection of the moot problems over the years, which is making its way to the shelves of clients and universities in India.

More information about the competition is available here. For more information about the competition please contact Chris Parsons, Nicholas Peacock or Nihal Joseph.

Our wider commitment to India

As part of the firm's wider commitment to India, we continue to support various initiatives with Indian law universities including:

  • our partnership with Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access (IDIA), a charity provides financial and practical support to empower students from underprivileged and marginalised communities in India to attend law school and to qualify as lawyers.
  • the Community Engagement Awards, designed to recognise and champion meaningful and high-impact community engagement activity among law students in India;
  • the NLU Delhi International Negotiation Competition;
  • the International Lecture Programme jointly organised in India by the firm and Oxford University; and
  • HSF Bridge, which connects law students with local charities and social causes in India, currently running across five Indian law universities.

Key contacts

Chris Parsons photo

Chris Parsons

Partner and chair of the India group, London

Chris Parsons