Ms Cecilia Siac

Honorary Associate

Cecilia Siac is an international mining law lawyer, listed in the UK publication "The International Who's Who of Mining Lawyers". She has more than 19 years of professional experience, and in particular in Africa and Latin America. She provides advice to the World Bank, companies and governments in connection with foreign investment, laws and regulations, privatization of state-owned concerns, public tenders, licensing, staking and permitting, drafting of joint venture, option, earn-in, royalty, transfer and other agreements; she carries out due diligence review processes and renders consulting services in connection with title matters and legal opinions, mergers and acquisitions, legal audits and proceedings, dispute settlement, international government procurement and construction of industrial works contracts, Initial Public Offerings, and so on.

Ms. Siac has been involved in several World Bank projects; in 2001, she completed a review and assessment of the legal situation of mineral and mining titles and evaluated the prevailing conditions at the Mining Registry in the Democratic Republic of Congo ("DRC") with a view to restructuring and upgrading it; she provided consulting services to the Congolese government concerning the process  for the validation of mineral and mining titles under the new legal framework, the setting up of a new Mining Registry, and in connection with certain agreements signed with foreign mining companies. In 2002, she also participated in the revision and drafting of provisions of the new Mining Code of the DRC and the revision of the entire new Mining Regulations. From 2004 until 2006, she carried out the legal audit of the DRC state-owned mining company Gecamines, under the auspices of the  World bank, to review, analyze and provide recommendations on all the contracts entered into by the company with a view to renegotiate them and to restructure and/or privatize the company.

In addition, she has been advising several exploration and mining companies in connection with their licences/permits, agreements, legal disputes, corporate matters, etc. in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Namibia, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, the Central African Republic, Niger, Marocco, Burkina Faso, and Angola, as well as in Latin America (Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Uruguay, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Nicaragua and Cuba).

During the past several years, she has been lecturing on mining law, international mining contracts and legal due diligence for mining transactions at the Canadian Bar Association, the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy of the University of Dundee, Scotland, and at the Organization of American States, Annual Meeting of the Legal Committee. More recently, she made a presentation to the Lawyers' Forum of the World Bank on the subject of mining registries in developing countries; in 2004, she lectured at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Geology, on legal due diligence for international mining transactions; she continues to lecture at the University of Dundee on negotiation, drafting and due diligence for international mining transactions where she is an Honorary Associate since 1997. She is the author of two publications on due diligence for international mining transactions and mining registries in developing countries.