Recently, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) issued a letter of bid acceptance, and Dentons, ranked first on the list, was appointed to the CNPC's first-level legal panel in dispute resolution (the Panel).

On November 23, 2018, Dentons Beijing received a tender notice from the CNPC for the Panel appointment. The schedule was tight and the requirements for this bidding were extremely high: first, the education background, awards received from legal directories and prior performance of the lead lawyer for the bidding are correlated in the overall scoring process, and these factors account for a big proportion in the final score with detailed rating rules; second, the standards for the working lawyers' performance and academic qualifications, as well as the prior track record of joint bidding entities are high; third, the certification materials involve 173 companies, including the CNPC headquarters, subordinate companies, along with 53 central SOEs and 24 central financial enterprises, thus the statistical work and screening was complex and time-consuming.

After receiving this notice and internal management procedures, a team led by Ma Jiangtao, chair of Dentons Beijing Dispute Resolution Professional Committee (the Committee), along with Dentons Shenyang and Urumqi offices and Beijing office's Risk team, started to prepare for this pitch. After carefully studying the evaluation method and analyzing and breaking down the scoring standards, the team re-produced the checklist for the materials needed for this bid. With the assistance of Dentons Beijing Risk department, they finished the screening of all involved units for the performance evaluation in just one night. In the meantime, the team collected success stories from all lawyers practicing dispute resolution through the Committee, and finalized the most suitable candidates for the working lawyers. They also assisted the Shenyang and Urumqi offices to prepare the relevant materials as required. Through the collaboration of Mr. Ma, Yuan Huazhi, Xu Yongqian, Zhu Zhongyou, Wang Yingbo (all from Beijing office; the working lawyers), Sun Changjiang, Wang Weidong, Li Dun and Chen Xue (lawyers of the consortium), and with the assistance of Zhu Lanchun from Dentons Shenzhen office, the bidding team finally achieved the most favorable combination for the scoring under the existing conditions, and Dentons was appointed to the CNPC's Panel as the first place on the list.

Since its establishment, the Committee has been adhering to the goals and principles of specialization, paying close attention to the service needs of key accounts in the industry, and focusing on improving the professionalism and industry status of our dispute resolution offerings. Our success in this panel appointment is the result of the coordination and structured organization of Dentons Beijing office and the Committee!