Description

The legal framework governing the exploration for, development, and production of oil and gas in the world today has become increasingly complex. It covers a wide range areas of the law (including public, administrative, public international law, commercial and contract law as well as the law specifically designed to govern oil and gas operations), legal arrangements between states and international oil companies (IOCs) (such as concessions/licences, production sharing, risk service and ‘hybrid’ contracts), commercial and contractual arrangements between oil and gas companies (such as joint operating, unitisation, farm‐out agreements etc.), industry standards and codes adopted within the industry, usages and customs, codes of conduct adopted by international organisations.

This presentation will explore the question of whether the ways in which the oil and gas transactions are governed around the world today have been standardised to such a degree that it is now possible to claim that we are witnessing the emergence of transnational oil and gas law. Arguably, this phenomenon can be seen on a number of different, but inter‐related, levels that include: ‘standardisation’ and ‘internationalisation’ of domestic laws governing the exploration for and production of petroleum; the use of similarly structured transactions in commercial dealings; increasingly uniform ways of conceptualising legal and commercial issues evidenced by wide acceptance of model contracts; a potentially significant role of industry ‘usages’ and ‘practices’; ‘internationalisation’ of contracts between host states and international companies.

The broad question that arises is that if it is true that some layers of legal governance of the sector can now be regarded as ‘transnational’, what are the legal and practical implications of this finding? This question, in turn, gives rise to a number of more specific questions that will be addressed in this presentation:

• Even if a particular contract (whether between a state/state party and an IOC, or between oil companies themselves) is subject to a specified domestic law, will there still be ‘transnational’ sources, outside that domestic law, that may govern some aspects of this contract?
• What exactly are those ‘transnational ’sources of governance and what is their content? What is the relationship between them?
• Should the international legal community be thinking about adopting an international convention, or some other type of an international instrument, to reflect and promote this high level of standardisation and harmonisation of legal governance within the oil and gas industry?

About The Speaker

Professor Djakhongir Saidov, formerly of the School of Law, University of Birmingham, is now Professor of Commercial Law at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London. His expertise and interests lie in international commercial law and the law governing international oil and gas operations. Professor Saidov has written extensively on various aspects of commercial law, such as the law of the international sale of goods, remedies for breach of contract, and the law relating to international commercial law instruments. His latest book, Conformity of Goods and Documents: The Vienna Sales Convention, was published earlier this year by Hart Publishing.

Who Should Attend

Lawyers, In‐house counsel, legal officers and business people working in the oil and gas industry and in commercial trade, banks and financial institutions.