The global trend towards green energy and sustainable environmental management is placing almost impossible regulatory pressure on mining companies and the bodies that regulate them.

South African mineral rights holders operate within a highly complex legislative environment, and many are looking for credible solutions to ease the compliance and administrative burden in the mining sector.

“From the multitude of municipal bylaws to the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act, National Environmental Management Act and the various 14 acts, regulations, and charters in-between, to mention a few, it’s extremely complex to navigate and that’s why we created a simple compliance solution that removes the complexity for our clients, and let us do what we do best,” comments mining, environmental, corporate and construction law firm NSDV director Lili Nupen, a frequent attendee of the Investing in African Mining Indaba.

NSDV’s Mineral Right Management service will track and monitor all reporting obligations, coordinate timeous and accurate reporting to all regulatory authorities, assess and manage legal and compliance risks, secure timeous approvals of regulatory applications, and provide full legal responses to directives, regulatory appeals, and administrative errors.

The new Mineral Rights Management service is unique in that the firm offers active management of relationships with regulators and external consultants. NSDV’s contemporary brand of law is exceptionally focused on relationship building, “we prefer people to paper”, says Nupen.

With a proprietary four-phase approach, mineral rights holders can expect NSDV to manage everything from creating a mineral rights data repository in the initial phase, to regulator and stakeholder relationship strategy development and biannual compliance and risk reporting.

NSDV can offer this unique solution to clients by developing a regulatory engagement strategy, facilitating engagements with relevant regulatory bodies and representatives, attending meetings with clients and regulators, facilitating, and managing negotiations, preparing, and submitting responses to regulators, and assisting in expediting applications and resolving disputes on clients’ behalf.

“When a client calls with an issue, we don’t simply rely on the paper trail, any law firm can do that and most of them can do it well. We pick up the phone, WhatsApp, or drive there and chat to the officials. Our view is that people are behind transactions and the better our relationships, the better our offering to clients who rely on those relationships,” adds Nupen.

Another unique offering is the NSDV Risk Advisory Service offering which adds risk consulting and management, obtaining mine closure certificates, and FIDIC or NEC construction risk management solutions as an outsourced service to clients.

NSDV is Africa’s first integrated law and consultancy firm, specialising in mining, construction, and the environment.