Mining

Squire Sanders has been advising clients throughout the global mining sector for more than 100 years. We possess particular depth in the issues confronting these industries and our clients include one of the world’s largest copper mining companies, the world’s largest steelmaker and the world’s leading cobalt producer.

We have in-depth expertise across legal disciplines, advising clients on:

• Mining asset transactions
• Corporate activity, including joint ventures and corporate structuring
• Financing of major mining facilities
• Environmental issues relating to mining and metals production
• Regulation of the mining and metals industry globally
• Litigation and toxic tort litigation in mining matters
• Antitrust, competition and international trade issues
• Intellectual property issues

We have guided mining industry clients around the world on the legal issues related to the processing of coal, copper, limestone and aggregates, lead, copper and zinc smelting. We have real-world experience in the industry, delving deeply into the issues facing metals and mining companies while working closely with or serving as in-house counsel for such companies.

In iron and steelmaking, our experience includes the sector’s satellite industries, such as foundries, steel forming operations, steel fabrication, ferroalloys, mining, coke making, shortline railroads and shipping, utility and power generating facilities, ore, coal and limestone mining and processing operations, and other material handling operations. We know from experience the technical, on-the-ground details of iron and steelmaking from beginning to end and have dealt with virtually every legal issue presented by the industry.

Representative Experience

• Assisting an Australia-based mining company with a gold mining joint venture in Nevada.
• Representing an investor, the controlling shareholder of a Hong Kong listed company, in connection with his individual first-round equity investment of approximately HK$100 million in a copper mine in Inner Mongolia that, together with the silver and zinc mines in the region, were to be listed in Hong Kong by way of red-chip listing.
• Acting for a Saudi Arabia-based titanium dioxide company in its AUS$1.3 billion acquisition of the Millennium Inorganic Chemicals Group, Lyondell’s titanium dioxide business, carrying out due diligence investigations on the Australia operations.
• Acting for Goldfields Limited on its bid in the contested trade sale of WMC Limited’s gold assets in Western Australia. We advised on bid strategy, negotiations, risk identification and analysis, native title, documentation and execution along with the complex cross-border financing. The deal was valued at approximately AUS$515 million.
• Acting for an ASX listed company in the provision of a AUS$400 million revolving cash advance facility to a West Africa-based gold mining entity partially owned by the government.
• Advising a taconite mine and processing facility in Minnesota regarding Title V air permit and MACT and BART regulatory issues, as well as issues associated with its wastewater discharge permit, and negotiating a favorable stipulation agreement in defense of the mine in an enforcement action brought by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
• Advising Alcoa, Inc. on its cooperation agreement with Chinalco for the combined Alcoa/Chinalco 2008 AUS$18 billion investment in Rio Tinto including foreign investment issues, disclosure and reporting issues.
• Advising a chrome producer regarding its sale of two chrome mines in Zimbabwe to a China-based buyer, two loans provided by the buyer upfront for the working capital of those two mines, the sale of a certain amount of lumpy chrome ores to the buyer, and the restructuring and subsequent sale of an AIM-listed gold mining company to the buyer. Our counsel included negotiations and deal closings in Beijing.
• Acting for a leading global supplier of iron ore in relation to the unwinding of a structured finance arrangement used to finance an unincorporated iron ore joint venture with a Chinese SOE in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
• Representing a publicly traded London-based company in its US$80 million sale of a 20 percent interest in a company that is the license holder for a gold mine in Yakutia, Russia, to one of Russia’s largest private investment companies.