The Queen’s Law team has won the 2024 Donald G.H. Bowman National Tax Moot and sweeps its team awards. Congratulations to oralists Ari Derohanesian, Jeff McPherson, Yash Chavda, Liam Day, and coach Martin Sorensen, Law’98, who is Senior Director at Finance Canada. 

Derohanesian and McPherson, both Law’24, won Best Overall Team (presented by Federal Court of Appeal Justice David Stratas, Law’84, LLD’12) and Best Appellant Factum (presented by Tax Court of Canada Justice Don R. Sommerfeldt). 

Chavda and Day won Best Respondent Factum (presented by Tax Court of Canada Associate Chief Justice Anick Pelletier).  

This year’s case was based on the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Deans Knight Income Corp. v. Canada, which dealt with the potential application of the general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR) to a loss utilization transaction.

After two intense days of mooting with 16 teams from across Canada, the mooters received their awards at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto at a grand finale that was also attended by five judges from the Federal Court of Appeal, nine judges from the Tax Court of Canada, and about 50 senior tax litigators, practitioners, and academics.  

The team also thanks their unofficial advisors – Sunita D. Doobay, Law’92, (partner at Blaney McMurtry LLP); Jean-Marc Leclerc, Law’98, (lawyer at Sotos LLP); Tristan Lee-Coughlin, LLM’23; and Alexandra MacLean (special advisor at Finance Canada) for their help and encouragement.