General Electric Sells Its Division GE Water

Davis, Polk & Wardwell LLP in Paris and New York; Baker McKenzie LLP in London; and Trench, Rossi e Watanabe Advogados in São Paulo have helped French water treatment company Suez acquire counterpart GE Water from General Electric for US$3.4 billion in a 40-plus jurisdictional deal.

General Electric turned to Weil, Gotshal & Manges in New York, Redwood City and Washington, DC; Carey in Santiago; Creel, García-Cuéllar, Aiza y Enriquez SC in Mexico City; Demarest Advogados in São Paulo; D'Empaire Reyna Abogados in Caracas; Gómez-Pinzón Zuleta Abogados in Bogotá; Morgan & Morgan in Panama City; and Rodrigo, Elías & Medrano Abogados in Lima for advice. Sanclemente Fernández Abogados in Bogotá is thought to have advised General Electric, but this could not be confirmed prior to publication.

Suez bought GE Water in a 70/30 joint venture with Canadian fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) in an all-cash transaction, which closed on 30 September. Latin Lawyer could not identify CDPQ's counsel prior to publication.

The tie-up involves more than 40 jurisdictions, including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.

Counsel to Suez

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

Partner Jacques Naquet-Radiguet, counsel Jean-Mathieu Cot in Paris; partners William Aaronson, Pritesh Shah and Jeffrey Crandall, counsel David Mollo-Christensen and Betty Moy Huber, and associates Reid Fitzgerald, Sarah Weissman, Bonnie Chen and Anthony Oliva in New York

Trench, Rossi e Watanabe Advogados

Partner Mauricio Pacheco and associates Marcelo Lucidi, Patricia Frederighi and Marcel Nunes São Paulo

Baker McKenzie LLP

Partner Jannan Crozier and Stephen Ratcliffe, and associate Richard Needham in London

Counsel to General Electric

Weil, Gotshal & Manges

Partners Jon-Paul Bernard, Kenneth Heitner, Chayim Neubort and Charan Sandhu, counsel Dawn Kim, Donald Whittaker, and associates Sean Devaney, Maria Lei, Ariel Simon, James Higgins, Steven Ort, Caroline Paige Geiger, Christine Paik, Lauren Springer and Melissa Meyrowitz in New...