Competition Rules

1.0 THE COMPETITION The John Molson MBA International Case Competition (the “Competition”) is organized by a team of MBA students from the John Molson School of Business (the “Organizers”) with the support of student volunteers and a Board of Directors which includes senior executives from the Montreal business community. The 2027 Competition will be held in Montreal from January 03 to January 08. 2.0 ELIGIBILITY The Competition is open to graduate schools offering an MBA or equivalent program deemed acceptable by the Board of Directors. A student who is enrolled in a graduate program at their school in the fall semester immediately preceding the Competition and who has not previously competed in any John Molson MBA International Case Competition is eligible to participate in the Competition. 3.0 TEAMS Each team must be represented by four students and at least one coach. A fifth student may be included as an alternate at the discretion of the school. An alternate may only participate for his/her school in exceptional circumstances and with the approval of the Organizers. A team member who has been replaced by an alternate may only return to his/her team in a subsequent case. An alternate who competes for his/her team will not be eligible to participate in future competitions. Teams that do not have an alternate may, under exceptional circumstances and with the approval of the Organizers, compete with three members for as long as is necessary for the Competition. In the event there are an odd number of schools registered for the Competition, the Organizers will form a Team Global made up of four alternates. Alternates will be asked to volunteer during registration and will be selected at random from the pool of willing alternates. If possible, Team Global will be comprised of an alternate from a school based outside North America, with the other members from American and Canadian schools. An alternate may rejoin his/her team should this become necessary during the Competition. An alternate who participates with a team other than his/her own school will be eligible to participate in future Competitions. 4.0 COMPETITION FORMAT The 30 teams will be assigned to five divisions by random draw, with each division to include at least two non-North American schools and at least one American school, if possible. Each team will compete with teams in their division one-on-one in five cases during the round-robin phase of the Competition. Nine teams will advance to the semi-finals, including five divisional winners and four wild cards. Divisional winners will be the teams with the highest number of wins in their divisions during the round robin. Wildcards will be the non-divisional winners with the highest match point accumulation during the round-robin. In the unlikely event that a non-qualifying team has more wins than a wildcard team, that team will replace the wildcard team with the lowest match point accumulation. (Please refer to the sections on Scoring, Match Points and Tie-breaking for additional detail). The nine semi-finalists will be divided into three groups based on their match point accumulation during the round-robin. The first group will include teams ranked first, sixth and ninth in match point accumulation. The second group will include teams ranked second, fifth and eighth, while the third will include teams ranked third, fourth and seventh. The teams in each group will compete in a semi-final case with the winners advancing to the finals. NOTE: Format is subject to change with the approval of the Academic Advisor of the JMSB International Case Competition, if the number of teams is less than 30.