Covid-19 and mining law

Stuart Butzier

Stuart Butzier has assisted mining, energy, high-tech, industrial and ranching clients throughout his thirty-year legal career with Modrall Sperling Roehl Harris & Sisk, PA. He is the firm’s Vice President and Managing Director of its Santa Fe, New Mexico office. Stuart currently is the elected President of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, and the Treasurer of IBA SEERIL’s Mining Law Committee.

Hubert André-Dumont

Hubert André-Dumont has over 35 years of legal experience as business lawyer. He focuses his practice on commercial law, company law, real estate and construction law, with a particular focus on mining law (including extensive experience in francophone Africa and in certain countries of the Balkans), as well as project finance and mergers and acquisitions. He has written extensively on international business and mining law issues, particularly on Congolese mining and corporate law issues.

Also active in the charitable sector, Hubert André-Dumont is an officer of various humanitarian NGOs.

Hubert André-Dumont is the current co-chair (2019-2021) of the Mining Law Committee of the International Bar Association.

Fernando Cornejo

Mr. Cornejo works with Great Panther Mining as Vice President, Operations Brazil. He brings close to 20 years of experience in senior management level roles in the mining industry.

Before joining Great Panther, Mr. Cornejo served as Vice-President, Projects & Technical Services of Aura Minerals Inc. where he successfully led the re-engineering and subsequent re-start of two open pit and underground mining operations in Brazil and Mexico. Prior to that, he held executive roles with Jacobs Engineering and the SGS Group in Canada, Peru and Mexico. Mr. Cornejo also held operational roles with Rio Tinto in Canada and BHP Billiton, in his native Peru.

Mr. Cornejo holds a Master’s Degree in Chemical Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, a Bachelors Degree in Chemical Engineering from Universidad Nacional de San Agustin Peru, a Master Certificate in Project Management from York University and is a member of the Professional Engineers of Ontario. Mr. Cornejo is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Ernesto Bonafé

Dr Ernesto Bonafé is a senior researcher at the Extractives Hub within the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy at University of Dundee. His research focuses on energy and climate and how the low-carbon transition impacts on resource-rich developing countries by looking into policies, institutions, market regulation, trade and investment. Previously, he was head of the Expansion Unit at the Secretariat of the Energy Charter Treaty in Brussels, at the time when the International Energy Charter was widely adopted by governments from Africa, Latin America and Asia. Prior to this, he worked at the Florence School of Regulation as a researcher, a lecturer and a training coordinator of online and residential courses for staff of national regulatory authorities and energy utilities. He was an intern at the European Commission and in the Cabinet of a Judge (current President) of the European Court of Justice of Luxembourg. Dr Bonafé holds a PhD in Energy Policy and EU Law from the European University Institute, Florence, an LLM in EU Law from Université Libre de Bruxelles, and a Law Degree from University of Valencia, Spain.

Carlos Vilhena

Carlos Vilhena is the Co-Chair of the IBA Mining Law Committee. Carlos is a partner at Pinheiro Neto Advogados, in Brasilia, Brazil, where he heads the firm’s Mining Law and Government Relations Practices. He has an LLM (Natural Resources/Mining Law) from the University of Dundee and a LLB from the University of Brasilia. Carlos is Director of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation.

Sophie Thomashausen

Sophie Thomashausen is a Fellow and former Senior Legal Researcher at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment. As such, she undertakes research and provides advice on issues related to mining law and policy, resource-related infrastructure, public-private partnerships, and large-scale land investments. Prior to joining CCSI, she was a Law Fellow at the Public International Law and Policy Group. She also spent seven years at Allen & Overy LLP in London and São Paulo where she advised on project finance, asset finance, and other banking transactions in the Middle East, Africa, Kazakhstan, and Brazil. She received an A.B. from Princeton University, an M.A. in law from Cambridge University, England, and an LL.M. from the College of Europe in Belgium. She is admitted to the Bar in New York State (2013) and England and Wales (2007) and is an authorized in-house counsel in Florida (2016).