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 comprehensive commercial services 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 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.
- Projects and Infrastructure.
- Competition.
- Insurance.
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
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
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
Commercial
- Exploration and prospecting agreements
- Development agreements
- Royalty agreements
- Contractor agreements
- Off-take and supply agreements
- Services and management agreements
Regulatory
- Mining title opinions
- Regulatory applications
- Advice on all aspects of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act and compliance therewith
- 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
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
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
Financing
- Acquisition finance
- Preference share funding
- Commodity and leveraged finance
- Listings, IPOs and capital raises
Business Rescue, Restructuring & Insolvency
- Care and maintenance
- Financial corporate overexposure and managing restructuring debt
- Business rescue
- Liquidation proceedings and sequestration
Projects & Energy
- Public Private Partnerships
- Joint ventures, pool and share agreements and PPPs
- Section 53 applications for approval to use the surface of land for projects
Property
- Lease and land use agreements
- Liaising with communities and Department of Rural Development and Land Reform regarding community land
Competition Law
- Preparing merger notification documents
- Merger investigation proceedings and representation at merger hearings
- Advice on all aspects of competition law
Insurance
- Policy
- Risk management issues
Tax & Exchange Control
- Corporate and mining taxation
- Structuring
- Exchange control
- Customs and excise
Mining & Minerals Sector Brochures
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 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.
- Projects and Infrastructure.
- Competition.
- Insurance.
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
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
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
Commercial
- Exploration and prospecting agreements
- Development agreements
- Royalty agreements
- Contractor agreements
- Off-take and supply agreements
- Services and management agreements
Regulatory
- Mining title opinions
- Regulatory applications
- Advice on all aspects of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act and compliance therewith
- 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
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
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
Financing
- Acquisition finance
- Preference share funding
- Commodity and leveraged finance
- Listings, IPOs and capital raises
Business Rescue, Restructuring & Insolvency
- Care and maintenance
- Financial corporate overexposure and managing restructuring debt
- Business rescue
- Liquidation proceedings and sequestration
Projects & Energy
- Public Private Partnerships
- Joint ventures, pool and share agreements and PPPs
- Section 53 applications for approval to use the surface of land for projects
Property
- Lease and land use agreements
- Liaising with communities and Department of Rural Development and Land Reform regarding community land
Competition Law
- Preparing merger notification documents
- Merger investigation proceedings and representation at merger hearings
- Advice on all aspects of competition law
Insurance
- Policy
- Risk management issues
Tax & Exchange Control
- Corporate and mining taxation
- Structuring
- Exchange control
- Customs and excise
Brochures
Mining & Minerals Sector 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 LawyersOur Work
Featured
Our finance & banking team is advised Harmony Gold in a US$200 million equity take out bridge loan facility, from a syndicate of banks
Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr is representing Harmony Gold, the third-largest gold mining company in South Africa and the 12th largest world-wide.
Our team advised Sibanye in the ConCourt matter of Sibanye/M Bester
Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr represented Sibanye, the largest individual producer of gold from South Africa and one of 10 largest gold producers globally.
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
Our finance & banking team is advised Harmony Gold in a US$200 million equity take out bridge loan facility, from a syndicate of banks
Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr is representing Harmony Gold, the third-largest gold mining company in South Africa and the 12th largest world-wide.
Our team advised Sibanye in the ConCourt matter of Sibanye/M Bester
Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr represented Sibanye, the largest individual producer of gold from South Africa and one of 10 largest gold producers globally.
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 newsAccelerated transformation and collaboration in South Africa’s transport sector to target ambitious economic growth: New regulations and reforms on the horizon
The appointment of the 7th administration comes with a renewed drive to address the challenges faced by the transport sector. This was confirmed on 1 October 2024 when President Cyril Ramaphosa, together with South African private sector business leaders, launched “ phase two ” of the Government Business Partnership with more determination to tackle South Africa’schallenges.
Reflections on the 2024 Joburg Indaba
The 2024 Joburg Indaba (Indaba) can be aptly summarised in the words of Rafiki from The Lion King: “ Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or learn from it.”
The overlapping rights saga continues: Clarifying the first in time, first in right principle and whether a prospecting right is a prerequisite to an application for a mining right
One of the cornerstones of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act 28 of 2002 (MPRDA) is to ensure the sustainable development of South Africa’s mineral resources and to promote economic growth, employment and the advancement of the social and economic welfare of all SouthAfricans.
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 2012–2023 recommended us in Tier 2 for mining.
- IFLR1000 2016–2023 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 2012–2023 recommended us in Tier 2 for mining.
- IFLR1000 2016–2023 ranked us in Tier 2 for project development: mining.
Happy Clients
"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
"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