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The project is planned as an international one in the field of International Commercial Joint Ventures, which is being implemented for the first time in the 2021/2022 academic year by the School of International Regional Studies of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, National Research University Higher School of Economics (Russian Federation) in cooperation with Orion Partners AS, Technical and Mercantile Consulting company, Norway, а consulting company with more than 30 years of experience in Norwegian and international oil and gas projects, including in Russia.
The project consists of two parts: practice-oriented and research.
The students will be invited to participate in a four month simulation exercise involving setting up an international joint venture to win and execute a contract for a major project in the Russian and oil and gas sector.
Planned Outcomes
The students will work with a realistic case and within a realistic context. The case will be designed by Orion Partners AS using its 30+ years of experience. The two academic mentors will attend to the theoretical aspects.
When the participants have completed the project, they will have:
1) Learned to apply a “Risk Management” approach to international business cooperation
2) Learned about the risks involved in entering into Joint Ventures, and how best to manage those risks
3) Through an interactive, action learning process, involving an actual case study and realistic documents, worked with some of the details that are important to understand when working in Joint Ventures
4) Considered the key commercial and legal issues that are important in Joint Ventures
5) Examined how to manage and resolve conflicts which often occur in Joint Ventures
6) Reviewed and analysed a set of typical documents which will be needed in the Joint Venture.
Case
You are a legal, management or commercial advisor to a technical company working in the Russian Oil and Gas business. We shall call the company “ROG”.
ROG has experience with working in Russia, especially with onshore oil and gas exploitation, specifically engineering and design, project management, manufacture of exploitation equipment. ROG has recently been given the opportunity, by both Rosneft and Gazprom, to become involved in the extraction of gas, condensate and oil from subsea fields identified in Russian continental water.
ROG has been invited to bid for some Engineering, Procurement, Construction (Fabrication and Manufacturing), Installation contracts for the Bing field offshore Sakhalin Island. The client is Gazprom, who is the Bing field developer and project responsible. The contract involves 8 years’ work, and is worth many million Euros.
Gazprom requires a considerable amount of the Design, Engineering, Procurement and Construction to be performed in Russia, with optimal use of Russian materials and components, and Russian manufacturing facilities.
Because of Russia’s relatively limited experience with subsea exploitation, ROG management has decided that it will be useful for ROG to enter into a joint venture with an international technology company with many decades of EPCI experience worldwide. We shall call this company “Amandla”.
Preliminary meetings have been held between the two potential joint venture partners. A preliminary, high level agreement has been made, in a short agreement between the CEOs of both companies, that a comprehensive joint venture will be negotiated over the following months.
You have been invited to join the team which will advise ROG as to the best way to proceed.
This format allows students to develop multilaterally, gain experience in business and risk analyses including cross border issues, creating documents of different types, including several agreements, negotiating and planning for successful implementation of a joint venture.
The students will be invited to attend virtual lectures, conduct meetings (some facilitated) both internally and with their counterparts, receive examples of necessary documents to be developed/dealt with during a JV set up). Students will also be required to make presentations which will be reviewed and assessed by mentors.
According to the results of the project, students will have to make presentations, which will be considered and evaluated by the project mentors at the final international online conference, and prepare an essay on the project topic, which will later be recommended for publication in the proceedings of the international conference at one of the European universities.
Within the framework of this project, students will review the literature and sources on the project topic, work with documents, prepare a presentation and an essay on the project topic and present the results of their work at the final online conference.
The aim of this project is to form students' knowledge and develop practical and research skills in the field of creating international joint commercial ventures, understanding the key goals of their creation, the organizational and legal forms of these JV, the stages of creation, the key risks associated with the creation and functioning of JV.
The project will be implemented in Russian and English.
On September 23, 2021
On September 23, 2021, within the framework of the international student research project "International Commercial Joint Venture: Designing, Reviewing and Negotiating Joint Venture Agreement and all related agreements and documents", which is being implemented for the first time in 2021/2022 academic year by the School of International Regional Studies of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, National Research University Higher School of Economics under the supervision of the head of the Department, Vera Vishnyakova, Ph.D and a Russian postdoc of School of International Regional Studies Irina Strelnikova, Ph.D in cooperation with managing director Graham Dyson Orion Partners AS, Technical and Mercantile Consulting company, Norway, held a meeting of participants and international partner of the project in a Zoom format. Within the framework of this meeting, the main contours of the project were outlined, the format and structure of the work identified, considered the relevance and specificity of the creation of international joint ventures.
On October 14th, 2021
On October 14th, 2021, within the framework of the international student research project "International Commercial Joint Venture: Designing, Reviewing and Negotiating Joint Venture Agreement and all related agreements and documents", another meeting was held in the Zoom format. Within the framework of this meeting, the main kea issues arising in the process of launching projects for international commercial joint ventures were discussed, the list of documents that should be prepared at the stage of negotiations on the creation of a Joint Venture was considered, issues related to the risk management approach used in international joint ventures were discussed, the problems of Due diligence were touched upon, the structure and main characteristics of the Cooperation agreement were considered, which the project participants should prepare in working groups for the next meeting.
On November 12, 2021
On November 12, 2021 the lecture within the framework of the international student project “International Joint Ventures: specifics and features of foundation and functioning” was conducted by Executive Director of Orion Partners AS, Technical and Mercantile Consulting company Graham Dyson. The lecture was in English, the format of the lecture was interactive and represented discussion between the lecturer and students. Besides, the young audience demonstrated Cooperation agreements which were prepared by project participants’ at home.
The main accent was made on the concept of trust. Students were asked on what basis they can trust a potential partner according to a joint venture. Many answers were given, we are able to key ones. A trust on the basis of a previous experience, thoroughness during signing an assignment ( it should not be perceived as ritual), written agreement of a potential partner about disclosure of any information connected with joint venture, a trust on the basis of a permanent dialog. The second part of seminar was dedicated to the consequences of the information leak and violation of the obligations under NDA and to the ways of solution of this issue. The lecture was devoted to an improvement of both practical and theoretical skills.
On January 26, 2022
On January 26, 2022, the final online conference was held, within the framework of which the project participants, under the guidance of the project leaders of the researcher of the department, Ph.D. I.A. Strelnikova and Graham Dyson, Managing Director of Orion Partners AS, Technical and Mercantile Consulting company, successfully delivered individual presentations of their reports on the results of the project. The presentations of the project participants are available at the link.
School Head, Associate Professor, Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, School of International Regional Studies
Research fellow, PhD in Law, associate professor, Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, School of International Regional Studies
BA LLB, Supreme Court Attorney, Managing Director Orion Partners AS, Technical and Mercantile Consulting company, Norway.
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