The Data Room

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https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/oil-kingmaker/

In an interview in 2018 with The Energy Year, Park stated that his law firm did not “act within a country for both the government and investors.” But Park’s own website has stated that he does indeed work with “both investors and states.” Our investigation has uncovered a clear pattern of Park advising governments and then setting up or advising companies in the same country, thereby benefiting directly from the oil regulations he helped draft.

Park did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

Our team has found many instances — from Iraq and Somalia, Mexico, Chad, Tunisia and now Namibia — where Park helped governments create laws while advising companies in which he had an interest on how to benefit from those same laws. Some of these scandals have been investigated by the United Nations or government agencies like the Serious Fraud Office in the U.K., and others have resulted in convictions for some of Park’s erstwhile clients. In three countries — Chad, Tunisia and Namibia — companies associated with Park have also reportedly been investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

So who is Park, the oil kingmaker you have never heard of? He may be London-based, but Park is a Canadian, born in Montreal. Oil runs through the family — his father, an ExxonMobil engineer, rose to become vice president of the company’s refinery division. Growing up he had summer jobs working for ExxonMobil’s subsidiary in Canada, Imperial Oil. 

In 1980, the young lawyer went to work for the Canadian law firm Macleod Dixon, where he would work directly and peripherally in places like Russia for decades, helping that country as it sold off state resources to private firms. Since at least 2013 he has run two companies: Park Energy Law and Petroleum Regimes Advisory Limited. It is through these two companies that he has helped governments draft their own oil laws while also running companies that have directly benefited from those laws. 

Park is a “King’s Counsel,” one of the highest honors a solicitor can attain in the U.K. It can take up to five years to earn the distinction and is seen as a legal badge of excellence. Despite this distinction, controversy, and sometimes conflict, seem to follow him….