Watson Farley & Williams (WFW), Holman Fenwick Willan (HFW) and Appleby have advised on the successful completion of Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha’s (NYK Line) 50% acquisition in Avenir LNG for an undisclosed amount.
NYK Line acquired the 50% stake from Stolt-Nielsen Gas, a subsidiary of Stolt-Nielsen, a global provider of bulk liquid logistics, storage and sustainable land-based aquaculture.
After transaction completion, it and Stolt-Nielsen had established a joint ownership and operating framework for Avenir LNG, NYK Line said.
The WFW team was led by partners Patrick Kirkby and Christina Howard, who heads the London corporate group, with support from lead senior associate Sebastian Lello and associate Laura Izquierdo.
“[WFW advised on] obtaining competition authority clearance to NYK’s purchase of 50% of the shares in Avenir LNG from competition authorities in China, South Korea and the European Union,” Kirkby told Asia Business Law Journal.
He said WFW also helped NYK and Stolt-Nielsen overcome several hurdles to complete the transaction.
“[We assisted] both NYK [Line] and Stolt-Nielsen in preparing and compiling the necessary submissions to the competition authorities, ensuring appropriate handling and treatment of sensitive information and detailing market share data and navigating client responses to various rounds of queries from the different competition authorities, and co-ordinating all appropriate deliverables (both competition related and non-competition related) and steps to closing of the purchase of the shares,” he said.
Appleby assisted WFW on Bermudan law matters.
HFW acted for Stolt-Nielsen, with head of corporate and commercial Alex Kyriakoulis leading the team, including support from legal director Emma Thomas and associate Sophie Dent.
NYK Line is a Japanese shipping and logistics company, while Avenir LNG operates more than 500 bunkering operations, a fleet of five vessels and one of the largest bunkering networks. Bunkering involves the supply and loading of marine fuel into a ship’s storage tanks.
