What’s notable about this $20 billion joint venture (aside from the big bucks) between Dow and Saudi Aramco is that it looks like W&C is successfully holding onto the Saudi Aramco business.
Saudi Aramco has been the foundation for all of White & Case’s Middle East work and the reason for the firm’s presence in the region. That relationship goes back about 50 years, since the firm was tapped to help defend against oil-cartel price-fixing allegations and blossomed into lots of big-ticket transactional work.
Remember a year and a half ago, Latham raided W&C to try to pry this client (among others) loose?
We were skeptical, but the firm scrambled to put a team together, including by promoting to associates who had just been passed over for partnership. It’s also a testament to the firm’s cross-border capacity, as the deal has been staffed mostly out of London and New York (admittedly, as most projects work is).
