Honorees: Stikeman Elliott, Davis Polk & Wardwell, Herbert Smith Freehills, CNOOC Limited, Blake Cassels & Graydon, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer, Covington & Burling, Norton Rose Fulbright, Nexen Inc., Richard A. Shaw P.C.
In a period when outbound Chinese investment surged around the world, the biggest deal was the US$15 billion acquisition of a Canadian oil company by CNOOC LTD, China’s largest producer of offshore crude oil and natural gas. The target was extraordinary: Nexen, a Calgary-based oil and gas giant with major assets in the U.S., Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as Canada. Complexity was part of the challenge in getting this deal done, but politics and national interest were the other major barriers. CNOOC is controlled by a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE), which added another layer of difficulty to the purchase.
