Mining Law and Tenement Management – NSW Community Consultation Code of Practice
November 19, 2021
Are Mining Approvals Becoming Harder To Obtain In Australia?
December 20, 2021
1. You are entering negotiations
If you are entering into talks with a potential client, a contractor, a landholder, a Native Title holder, an existing tenement holder, the Warden’s court, or a regulatory agency, it is essential that negotiations are approached with the assistance of mining lawyer.
A quality mining lawyer will be capable of representing your interests throughout the negotiation process. They will be aware of commonly encountered and rare vulnerabilities that can emerge during anything less than a highly professional negotiation. They will ensure that you are not put at a disadvantage, but rather, that negotiations are favourable and fair.
2. You are feeling anxious about how to proceed through a complicated situation.
If you are ever feeling the slightest anxiety about the legal surety of your operations, it pays to onboard a mining lawyer. A mining lawyer can provide you with the assurance that what you are doing is legal and they can advise you on any legal weaknesses or vulnerabilities. They can ensure that your tenement applications have every likelihood of success and that you are operating faultlessly when it comes to environmental compliance.
Lacking the confidence to proceed due to a lack of familiarity with Australian mining law is a problem for two reasons. Firstly, it reduces your likelihood of success at securing land access, gaining and maintaining tenements and ensuring an environmentally compliant program of work. Secondly, without that bolster of confidence, a mining corporation can lack the assurance to take risk – yet informed risk is the cause of many successful mining projects of the last 100 years.
3. You are growing or planning on growth.
All serious mining corporations have a strong legal team. There comes a point when a mining operation or corporation has become too profitable to seriously consider proceeding without support from a mining lawyer with expertise in Australian mining law. To do so is to expose one’s successes to an unnecessary amount of risk. The investment in a quality lawyer who specialises in mining law in Australia will pay for itself, particularly because the best Australian mining lawyers also bring astute financial awareness to the role.
Mining law is a continuous consideration during any ongoing mining operations or mineral explorations. Many corporations favour external expertise rather than a permanently hired employee or employees. The team at can work with you, as your team, while also bringing a high level of specialisation and a broad exposure to the common and rare legal complexities of Australian mining.
4. Your tenement application has failed.
If your tenement application has failed, then this is an extremely obvious sign that you need the support of a mining lawyer to enhance the likelihood that you will still be able to proceed with your intended plan of work. When this happens, it indicates that you could have benefited from recruiting the services of a tenement management company such as Hetherington, earlier.
A mining lawyer with expertise in mining law Australia will be able to represent your mining business at the Warden’s Court or equivalent. In Western Australia, the Warden’s Court is where mining disputes are brought forward for consideration and resolution; where all actions and proceedings related to tenements are elevated for analysis and assessment. It is also the place where disagreements with landowners about land access for mining are resolved, and where mining corporations seeking exemption from statutory requirements are given a hearings.
5. You are about to put pen to paper.
The second that something is written down and signed, it gains in legal significance. If your corporation is about to sign its name, or you are drafting a plaint or other legal document, we recommend reconsidering doing so independently. The same is true if you are about to sign a contract. In the legal world, you usually only get one chance to get something right.
You may be assured of the correctness and the reasonableness of everything you are committing to paper or an online document, but that does not often matter in terms of the outcome. What matters is how the regulatory authorities, local, state and federal governments and the legal representation for opposing stakeholders will perceive the matter and how it will hold up in court.
An Australian mining lawyer with decades of experience in Australian mining law can ensure that your document is worded correctly, includes the correct information, excludes irrelevant or compromising content, meets the expectations of authorities, and enhances the likelihood of success.
If after reading this you feel you could benefit from the services of a quality mining lawyer, tenement consultant, mining work health and safety adviser and environmental consultant, contact Hetherington today.
As experts of mining law in Australia, we have been servicing Australia and the Asia-Pacific Region for over 30 years, and will bring a high-level of expertise, informed advice, and purposeful representation to the legal dimension of your mining operations.