Canada’s Review of Cnooc-Nexen Deal Sparks Transparency Demands

The Canadian review of Cnooc Ltd.’s $15.1 billion bid for Nexen Inc. triggered calls for simpler foreign-investment rules as government-controlled Chinese companies account for a rising share of Asian takeovers.

“What the government should do is sit down and either pick the sectors that are going to stay Canadian or pick the actual companies,” Ian Telfer, chairman of Goldcorp Inc., the world’s second-largest gold miner by market value, said yesterday at the Bloomberg Canada-Asia conference in Vancouver. “Let everyone know what those rules are and then allow foreigners to make bids for other ones.”