Chinese outbound investment has grown rapidly in the last few years, particularly in the energy, mining, banking, IT and creative industries. On August 18, 2009 China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) announced the USD 7.2 billion acquisition of the Swiss Addax Petroleum Corporation. This was the largest international acquisition by a Chinese company to date. Additionally, CNPC has made several large international acquisitions – for example, in May, 2009, CNPC acquired a 45% stake in Singapore Petroleum for USD 1.2 billion while companies such as China Minmetals, China Nonferrous Metals, Baosteel, and ICBC have also made significant outbound investments recently. With the increasing internationalization of Chinese companies, commercial disputes are almost inevitable. In our experience, when dealing with international arbitration and litigation proceedings, we see Chinese companies employing a number of different strategies:

By King & Wood’s Cross Border Dispute Resolution teamContinue Reading Resolving International Disputes in Outbound Investment

On June 9, 2009, the State Administration for Foreign Exchange (“SAFE”) issued the Notice on Certain Issues Relating to Foreign Exchange Administration on Offshore Lending by Domestic Enterprises (the “Notice”) effective as of August 1, 2009, in an effort to deal with the difficulties faced by offshore Chinese-funded enterprises that have “gone abroad” in obtaining financing offshore and increasing working capital, to encourage more domestic enterprises with strong capital strength to “go abroad”, and to enhance the use of funds by domestic enterprises.
 

King & Wood’s Finance Group

 Continue Reading SAFE Circular to Improve Forex Administration on Offshore Lending