One of the engaging challenges of the Swansea University Law School Communication Skills Programme is when new competitions come along: understanding their goals, appreciating how they are assessed, and helping students to meet the challenges of the event.
The 2025/2026 year saw a new opportunity emerge with the Athens International Negotiation Competition, which ended in adventure, seasickness and, in the end, victory.
The competition itself came about by accident. After our internal Morgan LaRoche Sports Law Negotiation Competition, we had a team ready to compete in a National Sports Law Competition: Cara Di Teodoro (3rd year, Trent Dual Degree Programme) and Maddie Matthews (3rd year). The competition was, unfortunately, cancelled. When the Athens Competition was announced, I had to find a third student, and both were already familiar with Emily Law (3rd year) who had represented us in the International Negotiations Competition in the 2024/2025 year.
The competition itself was a 2-day event in Athens, with a focus on negotiation, networking, and, it turned out, nautical adventures as the second day was on a boat- including a tour of Hydra Island. All of this left the team exceptionally excited and keen to practice their negotiation skills ahead of the trip- all three had taken the optional Negotiations module which definitely helped!
The competition itself was naturally competitive with one team (not ours) announcing during the team introductions that “we are only here to win!” Not the Swansea style but it established the parameters of the competitors’ expectations. Cara, Maddie, and Emily threw themselves into the situation and in receiving information only an hour before each round, they needed to deploy all of their skills and fast thinking.
The rounds themselves generated strong feedback, against teams from across Europe, Africa, and North America, but with 16 teams competing, and only 2 progressing to the Final, there was unsurprising tension before the results were announced- when they were, the news was fantastic as they progressed to the Final round where they would face a Moroccan team. The later results revealed that Swansea placed 1st out of 16 in both of the first 2 rounds and then 6th out of 16 in the final round- a superb set of results against very strong opposition- even more impressive as for the negotiation on the boat, Emily suffered from sea-sickness: never a fun feeling when trying to negotiate!
The Final round threw them out of their comfort zone again as they were not negotiating against the other finalist but against a team of professional CEOs- the challenge was to be the best team that they negotiated against rather than negotiating against a team directly. This was something none of them had come across before, but they performed remarkably well, with the judges commenting that their flexibility and ability to listen to the concerns of their opponents was a central part of their positive score.
In the end Swansea were announced as the winners, capping off a remarkable performance by the team. All three had a fantastic time, even though it meant that some coursework was submitted from the airport, and gained a huge amount of experience, as well as three very Greek trophies.
A huge thanks must go to Evita Psoni and her team for organising such a superb event.
If anyone wants to find out more about the Swansea University Law School Communication Skills Programme, do contact Matthew Parry at m.j.parry@swansea.ac.uk.