Competing with 13 other European universities, the four students Malene Juul, Rosa Tadesse, Anne Flening-Thomsen and Laura Ferslev Topsø-Jensen won the competition.

Themes

Every year, the case deals with dilemmas in the workplace that are clearly related to EU law.

This year, the case was about working hours and the right to take time off – more specifically, a disagreement about a late phone call from a manager to an employee, which was left unanswered, ending in an immediate dismissal of the employee. Another employee had a disability and requested adjustments of the workplace. This disagreement concerned whether the employer was obligated to meet the wishes of the employee, and whether the suggested adjustments were appropriate and reasonable. Finally, the team had to argue a case about a freelance IT worker who wanted salaries in accordance with a collective agreement, and whether this was in breach of competition law.

The teams had to apply and interpret EU law and EU case law related to working hours, the concept of disability, burden of proof rules, the duty of the employer to provide accommodative measures, free movement of workers and self-employed persons, EU competition law, status as a worker, freelancer or genuinely self-employed person, EU conform interpretation, direct vertical and horizontal effect of general principles of EU law, as well as Article 8 (the right to privacy) and Article 11 (the freedom of association) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Written Statements consisted of 2 x 40 pages in English and were assessed as the best by an international panel of experts – and were even significantly ahead of the second and third place in the competition. The team received praise for their precision, clarity, good communication skills and well-structured arguments. The team also did very well in the online oral competition but was unfortunately beaten by the German team.

The Hugo Moot Competition

The Danish team in the Hugo Moot is a collaboration between Aarhus University and the law firm Poul Schmith/Kammeradvokaten (Legal Adviser to the Danish Government). In total, four coaches act as supervisors for the team during the spring semester – beginning with the written part of the competition from February until May, and then the oral part of the competition from May until June.

The four students deserve a lot of praise for their hard work this spring as well as congratulations on their result. We also want to thank the coaches Peter Ahlberg and Mikkel Isager-Sally from Poul Schmith/Kammeradvokaten and the coaches Vincenzo Pietrogiovanni and Natalie Videbæk Munkholm from Aarhus University for once again providing the team with excellent guidance.