Herbert Smith Freehills

The celebrated firm Herbert Smith Freehills mans more than 20 offices across Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, making it one of the largest outfits in the world. Its broad team of talented attorneys is recognized and often called upon on account of their commitment to their work and deft ability to manage the complexities of any case, regardless of the specific industry. Furthermore, the firm prides itself on the relationships its attorneys develop with their clients, making Herbert Smith Freehills intellectually exceptional and technically capable.

Attorneys at Herbert Smith Freehills are experienced on the local, national, and international levels. Hong Kong's David Clinch is the head of the firm's Asia energy, mining, and infrastructure practice. He has been with the firm for two decades and in Asia for 16 years. His work concerns energy, projects, and finance transactions around the world, and he often has a hand on acquisitions and disposals, joint ventures, project development, and project finance within the oil and gas, mining, power, chemical, and infrastructure sectors. Outside of Asia, his rich and well-developed practice has brought him to issues in Africa, Australasia, the Middle East, the former Soviet Union, South America, and the United Kingdom. These often include affairs in the multibillion-dollar range.

Sinopec enlisted Clinch's expertise during its acquisition of 49 percent of Talisman Energy's UK North Sea business, a transaction amounting to approximately US$1.5 billion, as well as on the sale and purchase and joint-venture arrangements. Other significant clients with high-value needs include Sumitomo Chemical, Mitsubishi Corporation, and BG Group.

Richard Nelson previously practised in London and Tokyo before coming to his current role as a partner in the firm's Singapore office, where he heads the Southeast Asia energy team. He specializes in the oil and gas sectors with a wealth of experience advising on energy and infrastructure projects as well as project finance. International companies and institutions enlist the wildly accomplished attorney for their needs in jurisdictions ranging from Eastern Europe to Africa, the United Kingdom to Vietnam. Among his many high-profile clients, BP, GDF Suez, and Golar Energy have all benefited from Nelson's vast experience and commendable success rate.

Lewis McDonald serves the Seoul office as its managing partner. His robust practice carries substantial experience behind it and helped secure his position as one of the leading transactional lawyers in the world. Additionally, McDonald leads the corporate governance group at Herbert Smith Freehills. Having previously practised in Perth, London, Hong Kong, and Singapore as well as advised on transactional issues in most of the world's major producing regions, his clients have come to expect a global perspective and international insights from the vastly knowledgeable lawyer. Currently, he focuses on Korean companies investing across the country's borders as they relate to energy, natural resources, and infrastructure.

McDonald is frequently involved in multimillion-dollar transactions and even those upwards of $1 billion. He represented BG Group on the sale of 40 percent interest in a 1,000MW Santa Rita power plant and the 500MW San Lorenzo power plant in the Philippines to First Gen, a transaction valued at $360 million.