Mining

Our Mining Group draws upon the extensive legal expertise and broad industry experience of lawyers in our offices across Canada to advise mining companies, investment dealers and financial institutions on a wide variety of domestic and international transactions involving precious and base metals, diamonds and industrial minerals. The mining-related areas covered by our lawyers include the following:

• Domestic and international acquisitions and divestitures
• Public and private equity and debt financing
• Option, joint venture, exploration and royalty agreements
• Stock exchange listings
• Regulatory compliance and advice, including advice on National Instrument 43-101
• Environmental issues, including permitting, compliance and offences
• Energy issues, including regulatory issues and rates, power generation and transmission infrastructure requirements
• Aboriginal issues
• Construction issues
• Tax planning and structuring
• Tax audit and appeal representation
• Flow-through share financing, including structuring for provincial mining credits
•  Litigation support

Representative Work

Recent matters in which our lawyers have been involved include the following:

• counsel on numerous initial public offerings, private placements and financings for mine production, developlement and exploration companies.
• several tax-deferred spin-outs of mining properties owned by public mining companies into new publicly-listed issuers
• merger of two North American based mining companies with extensive African property holdings
• reverse take-over of a TSX Venture Exchange-listed company by a mining company with projects in Brazil and subsequent listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange
• acquisition of Australian based uranium exploration company
• acquisition of base metals mine in New Brunswick
•  negotiating a joint venture agreement for the development of a thermal coal deposit and acquisition of an anthracite coal project in British Columbia
• acquisition of a subsidiary of a major Canadian mining company
• acquisition and consolidation of South American mineral properties for acquisition by publicly listed vehicles
• acquisition of mineral properties in West African OHADA countries, negotiations with government authorities and financing of mining activities
• structuring offshore vehicles for mining exploration and mining activities
• financing of mining concerns with South African institutional lenders secured with offshore assets
• negotiating and drafting construction agreements for telecommunications infrastructure for mines in the Northwest Territories
• advising a financial institution on environmental issues related to the closure of an asbestos mine
• mining tax and income tax litigation for a multinational mining company
• advising on aboriginal consultation issues and negotiating First Nations impact benefit agreements, including in relation to diamond mines in the Northwest Territories and coal and molybdenum mines in British Columbia
• advising on regulatory issues relating to energy requirements in British Columbia and Alberta and GHG emissions, offsets and carbon credits
• advising on permitting requirements
• advising mining company on capital contribution in connection with construction of power requirements and needed transmission lines
• negotiating telecommunications service agreements with mining companies in remote areas of the Northwest Territories
• numerous option, royalty and lease agreements for exploration properties
• numerous public and private equity and debt financings, including flow-through shares
• spin-offs of mining properties owned by two public mining companies into new publicly-listed corporations
• advising a financial institution on environmental issues related to the closure of an asbestos mine

Our Firm

Miller Thomson LLP is one of Canada’s largest national law firms, with offices in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, London, Kitchener-Waterloo, Guelph, Markham and Montréal. The firm provides a complete range of business law, advocacy and personal legal services to Canadian and international corporations, entrepreneurs, institutions, governments and not-for-profit organizations.