A celebration of excellence

Last year, we wrote that Norton Rose partner Ian McCubbin called China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) “global players that behave like any other company”, and this year's showcase of outbound achievements reflects his statement perfectly.

“The shift from public to private wasn't as great as everyone predicted a decade ago,” said Anthony Root, the Asia managing partner of Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy. “SOEs are now acting like private companies.” Root led a global team that helped State Grid Corporation of China become the first Chinese corporate to acquire complete control of a foreign electricity grid asset, the winning transaction of CLP's Outbound category. “This deal is a road map of where the Chinese are heading. Corporate China is seeing increasing opportunities to invest outside of China as well as in China,” he said. Not only are the Chinese starting to win bids against local players in offshore destinations, they are flexing their muscles and becoming more strategic and eager to secure assets. One of our other shortlisted outbound deals saw PRC mining company Minmetals Resources attempt a hostile takeover of Canada's Equinox Minerals, the largest-ever unsolicited overseas takeover attempt by a Chinese corporate.

The deals recognised as finalists for this year's awards all share commonalities: they were extremely complex, legally challenging and utilised precedent-setting structures. The finalist teams all demonstrated continued excellence and a strong growth trajectory in their practice areas. It was really quite tough for the CLP editorial team to select winners in all the categories, but eventually we came to our conclusions. The research process was time-consuming and handled over four months, with many hours dedicated to poring over firm submissions and interviews with private practice lawyers, in-house counsel and other industry participants.