Mining & Minerals

Mining and mineral law in South Africa is both legally and administratively complex. Our team is solution-driven, dynamic and able to offer a full range of legal services to support clients that work in this sector. 

Mining & Minerals Sector Services

Our team is multi-disciplinary and includes a number of leading legal experts across a broad range of areas of specialty. Our immersive and longstanding association with the resources sector means we have sound, practical knowledge and are capable of offering a full range of services in a comprehensive and commercial way.

Our lawyers are highly skilled and have extensive experience. We are a solution driven and dynamic team and are well placed to offer relevant advice at a strategic level as well as advising on day-to-day legal issues.

Our Services include:

  • Transactional
  • Commercial
  • Black Economic Empowerment
  • Regulatory
  • Commercial Disputes
  • Health and Safety
  • Employment
  • Environmental
  • Business Rescue, Restructuring and Insolvency
  • Property
  • Tax
  • Financing
  • Construction
  • Projects and Infrastructure
  • Competition
  • Corporate & White Collar Investigations

Transactional

  • Mergers, acquisitions and disposals, including cross-border transactions
  • Joint ventures and partnerships
  • Private equity
  • Foreign direct investment
  • Listings, IPOs, capital raises
  • Corporate structuring and restructuring
  • Due diligence investigations and risk identification
  • Share incentive schemes

Lawyers 

Black Economic Empowerment

  • Mining Charter
  • BEE structuring and transactions
  • Broad-based schemes and employee share ownership schemes
  • BEE strategies
  • Registration of empowerment trusts
  • Community projects

Lawyers 

Commercial

  • Exploration and prospecting agreements
  • Development agreements
  • Royalty agreements
  • Contractor agreements
  • Off-take and supply agreements
  • Services and management agreements

Lawyers 

Regulatory

  • Mining title opinions
  • Regulatory applications
  • Advice on all aspects of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act and compliance therewith
  • Human Rights and sustainable practises
  • Section 11 applications for the transfer of mineral rights and/or shareholdings
  • Section 102 applications for the amendment of mineral rights
  • Notarial executions and registration of rights

Lawyers

Health & Safety

  • Legal compliance reviews
  • Reporting safety incidents
  • Statutory appointments
  • Mine health and safety investigations, inquiries, compliance audits and legal proceedings
  • Reviews and appeals in respect of closures
  • Staff training and employee education

Lawyers

Employment Law

  • All employment aspects of restructurings, mergers and acquisitions, redundancies and business transfers
  • Litigation and dispute resolution, including private conciliation and arbitration
  • Employee relations and strategic planning
  • Training and development
  • Restraint of trade

Lawyers

Environmental Law

  • All aspects of environmental compliance
  • Planning issues and environmental impact assessments
  • Programme development
  • Environmental litigation, appeals and objections
  • Land use and heritage law
  • Advising on financial provisions for rehabilitation

Lawyers

 

Corporate Debt, Turnaround & Restructuring

  • Care and maintenance
  • Financial corporate overexposure and managing restructuring debt
  • Business rescue
  • Liquidation proceedings and sequestration

Lawyers

Property

  • Lease and land use agreements
  • Liaising with communities and Department of Rural Development and Land Reform regarding community land

Lawyers

Financing

  • Acquisition finance
  • Preference share funding
  • Commodity and leveraged finance
  • Listings, IPOs and capital raises

Lawyers

Projects & Infrastructure

  • Public Private Partnerships
  • Joint ventures, pool and share agreements and PPPs
  • Section 53 applications for approval to use the surface of land for projects
  • Renewable Energy Projects

Lawyers

Construction & Engineering

  • Energy (renewable and fossil fuel)
  • Transport
  • Infrastructure
  • Mining
  • Process plants
  • Civil construction

Lawyers

  • Clive Rumsey

Competition Law

  • Preparing merger notification documents
  • Merger investigation proceedings and representation at merger hearings
  • Advice on all aspects of competition law

Lawyers

Tax & Exchange Control

  • Corporate and mining taxation
  • Structuring
  • Exchange control
  • Customs and excise

Lawyers

Corporate & White Collar Investigations

  • Implementing best practice
  • Preventative policies and training programmes to combat corporate crime
  • Leading simple to widespread and complex internal investigations and forensic audits
  • Protecting organisations from financial and non-financial damages caused by fraudulent and corrupt activities
  • Assisting corporations understand and abide by the local and international laws and regulatory frameworks implemented by governments to identify and eliminate corporate crime
  • Strategically reacting and responding to allegations of fraud, bribery, tax evasion, collusion and the like
  • Negotiating and collaborating with regulatory authorities on behalf of clients

Lawyers

 

Services

Mining & Minerals Sector Services

Our team is multi-disciplinary and includes a number of leading legal experts across a broad range of areas of specialty. Our immersive and longstanding association with the resources sector means we have sound, practical knowledge and are capable of offering a full range of services in a comprehensive and commercial way.

Our lawyers are highly skilled and have extensive experience. We are a solution driven and dynamic team and are well placed to offer relevant advice at a strategic level as well as advising on day-to-day legal issues.

Our Services include:

  • Transactional
  • Commercial
  • Black Economic Empowerment
  • Regulatory
  • Commercial Disputes
  • Health and Safety
  • Employment
  • Environmental
  • Business Rescue, Restructuring and Insolvency
  • Property
  • Tax
  • Financing
  • Construction
  • Projects and Infrastructure
  • Competition
  • Corporate & White Collar Investigations

Transactional

  • Mergers, acquisitions and disposals, including cross-border transactions
  • Joint ventures and partnerships
  • Private equity
  • Foreign direct investment
  • Listings, IPOs, capital raises
  • Corporate structuring and restructuring
  • Due diligence investigations and risk identification
  • Share incentive schemes

Lawyers 

Black Economic Empowerment

  • Mining Charter
  • BEE structuring and transactions
  • Broad-based schemes and employee share ownership schemes
  • BEE strategies
  • Registration of empowerment trusts
  • Community projects

Lawyers 

Commercial

  • Exploration and prospecting agreements
  • Development agreements
  • Royalty agreements
  • Contractor agreements
  • Off-take and supply agreements
  • Services and management agreements

Lawyers 

Regulatory

  • Mining title opinions
  • Regulatory applications
  • Advice on all aspects of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act and compliance therewith
  • Human Rights and sustainable practises
  • Section 11 applications for the transfer of mineral rights and/or shareholdings
  • Section 102 applications for the amendment of mineral rights
  • Notarial executions and registration of rights

Lawyers

Health & Safety

  • Legal compliance reviews
  • Reporting safety incidents
  • Statutory appointments
  • Mine health and safety investigations, inquiries, compliance audits and legal proceedings
  • Reviews and appeals in respect of closures
  • Staff training and employee education

Lawyers

Employment Law

  • All employment aspects of restructurings, mergers and acquisitions, redundancies and business transfers
  • Litigation and dispute resolution, including private conciliation and arbitration
  • Employee relations and strategic planning
  • Training and development
  • Restraint of trade

Lawyers

Environmental Law

  • All aspects of environmental compliance
  • Planning issues and environmental impact assessments
  • Programme development
  • Environmental litigation, appeals and objections
  • Land use and heritage law
  • Advising on financial provisions for rehabilitation

Lawyers

 

Corporate Debt, Turnaround & Restructuring

  • Care and maintenance
  • Financial corporate overexposure and managing restructuring debt
  • Business rescue
  • Liquidation proceedings and sequestration

Lawyers

Property

  • Lease and land use agreements
  • Liaising with communities and Department of Rural Development and Land Reform regarding community land

Lawyers

Financing

  • Acquisition finance
  • Preference share funding
  • Commodity and leveraged finance
  • Listings, IPOs and capital raises

Lawyers

Projects & Infrastructure

  • Public Private Partnerships
  • Joint ventures, pool and share agreements and PPPs
  • Section 53 applications for approval to use the surface of land for projects
  • Renewable Energy Projects

Lawyers

Construction & Engineering

  • Energy (renewable and fossil fuel)
  • Transport
  • Infrastructure
  • Mining
  • Process plants
  • Civil construction

Lawyers

  • Clive Rumsey

Competition Law

  • Preparing merger notification documents
  • Merger investigation proceedings and representation at merger hearings
  • Advice on all aspects of competition law

Lawyers

Tax & Exchange Control

  • Corporate and mining taxation
  • Structuring
  • Exchange control
  • Customs and excise

Lawyers

Corporate & White Collar Investigations

  • Implementing best practice
  • Preventative policies and training programmes to combat corporate crime
  • Leading simple to widespread and complex internal investigations and forensic audits
  • Protecting organisations from financial and non-financial damages caused by fraudulent and corrupt activities
  • Assisting corporations understand and abide by the local and international laws and regulatory frameworks implemented by governments to identify and eliminate corporate crime
  • Strategically reacting and responding to allegations of fraud, bribery, tax evasion, collusion and the like
  • Negotiating and collaborating with regulatory authorities on behalf of clients

Lawyers

 

Brochures

Mining & Minerals Lawyers

Our Mining & Minerals team has been involved in many of the largest and most prominent and complex resource industry transactions and matters in South, East, and sub-Saharan Africa, including recent headline landmark black economic empowerment (BEE) transactions.

Our Mining & Minerals Lawyers

Our Work

All

Waterberg JV Resources

CDH is representing Waterberg JV Resources, an incorporated joint venture between Impala Platinum, Platinum Group Metals, JOGMEC and Hanwa (Japan) and a local black economic empowerment company.  Our South Africa-based mining team advised Waterberg JV Resources on its successful application for a mining right and environmental authorisation over one of the most important platinum discoveries in South Africa.  

Nkomati Joint Venture

Our team is representing Nkomati Joint Venture, an unincorporated joint venture between African Rainbow Minerals (ARM), a leading South Africa-based diversified mining and minerals company with interests in a wide range of mines, including platinum and platinum group metals, iron, coal, copper, and gold; and Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest producer of palladium, one of the largest producers of Nickel, platinum and copper. Our South Africa-based mining team has been advising Nkomati Joint Venture on all aspects of the closure of the Nkomati Mine, previously Africa’s largest nickel-producing mine, placing the operation under care and maintenance.  

ABSA Property Development (ABSA)

CDH is representing ABSA, the leading South Africa-based commercial property finance company.  Our South Africa-based mining team is advising ABSA in relation to its joint establishment of the Klarinet Integrated Housing Development with the Emalahleni Local Municipality and Mpumalanga Department of Human Settlements. 

Bokoni Platinum Mines (Bokoni)

CDH is representing Bokoni, the leading South Africa-based operating mine located on the North-Eastern Limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex. Our South Africa-based mining team is advising Bokoni on several disputes with the Baroka Ba Nkwana community. In July 2021, Ella Ramathabathe Phashe and 137 others instituted motion proceedings out of the Limpopo Division of the High Court, seeking, among others, to interdict the disposal of Bokoni's mining right.  

Sibanye Stillwater

CDH is representing Sibanye Stillwater, the leading South Africa-based global mining and metals processing group.  Our South Africa-based mining team provided strategic advice to Sibanye Stillwater in respect of a wage dispute and a threatened sympathy strike with the union, AMCU, at various other platinum producers.  The Labour Court ruled against AMCU and interdicted the sympathy strike.  AMCU took the matter to the Labour Appeal Court.  We succeeded in opposing the appeal in late 2021.

Our Work

Waterberg JV Resources

CDH is representing Waterberg JV Resources, an incorporated joint venture between Impala Platinum, Platinum Group Metals, JOGMEC and Hanwa (Japan) and a local black economic empowerment company.  Our South Africa-based mining team advised Waterberg JV Resources on its successful application for a mining right and environmental authorisation over one of the most important platinum discoveries in South Africa.  

Nkomati Joint Venture

Our team is representing Nkomati Joint Venture, an unincorporated joint venture between African Rainbow Minerals (ARM), a leading South Africa-based diversified mining and minerals company with interests in a wide range of mines, including platinum and platinum group metals, iron, coal, copper, and gold; and Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest producer of palladium, one of the largest producers of Nickel, platinum and copper. Our South Africa-based mining team has been advising Nkomati Joint Venture on all aspects of the closure of the Nkomati Mine, previously Africa’s largest nickel-producing mine, placing the operation under care and maintenance.  

ABSA Property Development (ABSA)

CDH is representing ABSA, the leading South Africa-based commercial property finance company.  Our South Africa-based mining team is advising ABSA in relation to its joint establishment of the Klarinet Integrated Housing Development with the Emalahleni Local Municipality and Mpumalanga Department of Human Settlements. 

Bokoni Platinum Mines (Bokoni)

CDH is representing Bokoni, the leading South Africa-based operating mine located on the North-Eastern Limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex. Our South Africa-based mining team is advising Bokoni on several disputes with the Baroka Ba Nkwana community. In July 2021, Ella Ramathabathe Phashe and 137 others instituted motion proceedings out of the Limpopo Division of the High Court, seeking, among others, to interdict the disposal of Bokoni's mining right.  

Sibanye Stillwater

CDH is representing Sibanye Stillwater, the leading South Africa-based global mining and metals processing group.  Our South Africa-based mining team provided strategic advice to Sibanye Stillwater in respect of a wage dispute and a threatened sympathy strike with the union, AMCU, at various other platinum producers.  The Labour Court ruled against AMCU and interdicted the sympathy strike.  AMCU took the matter to the Labour Appeal Court.  We succeeded in opposing the appeal in late 2021.

Mining & Minerals News

More news

Revisiting an old gem in the circularity era: Reprocessing of tailings under the Ataqua judgment

According to PwC’s SA Mine 2024 report (Report), which was released on 1 October 2024, “ The South African mining sector has experienced a hive of merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the past year. ” The Report notes a total deal value of $10 billion across 32 deals in the 12-month period ending 30 June2024.  

Key considerations for investors in mining mergers and acquisitions in Africa

Africa’s mining sector presents significant opportunities, but it also comes with unique challenges for investors. It is being reshaped by both global and local forces, with international powers competing for valuable resources and regional initiatives enhancing trade and investment. The importance of navigating regulatory complexities, understanding shifting geopolitical dynamics, and embracing new technologies within this environment cannot be overstated.

Financing mining projects: Thinking out of the box to unlock Africa’s mining potential

The African mining sector, rich in resources but often constrained by financing challenges, is at a crossroads. Traditionally, mining companies have relied on conventional financing methods to fund exploration, development and expansion projects. These methods – primarily equity financing, bank loans and project financing – have long been the ‘go-to’ options for raising capital. However, in today’s volatile economic environment, especially in emerging markets like Africa, these traditional models come at a significantcost.  

Market recognition

Our Mining & Minerals team is externally praised for its depth of resources, capabilities and experience.

 

  • Chambers Global 2017–2024 ranked our Mining & Minerals sector in Band 2 for energy & natural resources: mining.
  • Chambers Global 2012–2016 ranked our Mining & Minerals sector in Band 3 for energy & natural resources: mining.
  • The Legal 500 EMEA 2012–2024 recommended us in Tier 2 for mining.
  • IFLR1000 2016–2024 ranked us in Tier 2 for project development: mining.

Market recognition

Our Mining & Minerals team is externally praised for its depth of resources, capabilities and experience.

 

  • Chambers Global 2017–2024 ranked our Mining & Minerals sector in Band 2 for energy & natural resources: mining.
  • Chambers Global 2012–2016 ranked our Mining & Minerals sector in Band 3 for energy & natural resources: mining.
  • The Legal 500 EMEA 2012–2024 recommended us in Tier 2 for mining.
  • IFLR1000 2016–2024 ranked us in Tier 2 for project development: mining.

Happy Clients

Chambers Global 2024

"The team is very commercially aware. It is in touch with current trends both locally and internationally and always strives to bring these perspectives in their work."

Chambers Global 2024
Chambers Global 2024

"Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr is a very good law firm and I am very happy with the service. Its is responsive and gets the work done."

Chambers Global 2024

"The Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr team is experienced and extremely knowledgeable in all things mining. They continuously assist and advise us on complex legal matters with skill."

Chambers Global 2023

"Our partner at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr and the team in general are always very responsive and they work to agreed timelines."

Chambers Global 2023

"All the lawyers we deal with at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr are commercially aware and pragmatic."

Chambers Global 2023