Global law firm Baker & McKenzie is in the spotlight this week following a report by the Wall Street Journal that it won work from China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) following inappropriate conduct by one of the company's in-house lawyers.

The report says the state-owned oil giant's then legal director, Karen Kang Xin, who is married to Bakers' chief representative in Beijing Stanley Jia, acted in breach of Chinese regulations and company policy by going on trips paid for by the firm and then helping it to win mandates.

The WSJ cites an email sent on Monday from CNOOC's chief legal officer to two other international law firms. The email reportedly says that CNOOC ended its relationship with Bakers in March last year, and then initiated a formal investigation against Kang.

Jia has been a partner at Bakers since 2000, specialising in China trade and investment, M&A, projects and energy and other cross border work. He is understood to have worked as an associate at the firm since 1993. 

CNOOC said it had no comment on the issue when contacted by Legal Week, while Baker & McKenzie reiterated its comments to the WSJ. The newspaper quoted the firm as saying:

"[We have] strict rules and guidelines about professional conduct. Based on all of the information we have reviewed, we have not identified any breach of any professional rules or internal Baker & McKenzie rules by our attorneys or employees in this matter."

Corruption continues to be a key problem in China despite government attempts to crack down, with the country ranking 80th out of 177 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2013.

State enterprises as well as a number of international companies have been caught up in investigations recently. In September, GlaxoSmithKline in China was found guilty of bribing non-government personnel after an investigation was launched last year, and ordered to pay a fine of £297m. Ropes & Gray represented GSK.