OTHER JURISDICTIONS Q&A
What regulatory issues do you need to watch out for on imports or exports? When we first started we had issues with things you could never think of. We were bringing assay standards for our Quality Control – Quality Assur- ance. These are finely powder rock sealed in plastic bags. Customs people looked at it rather strangely to say the least, now that there is an understand- ing of what we are doing and the supplies we need we don’t have problems. Colombia had been isolated politically and from a foreign standpoint be- cause of all the violence there, but their legal framework for importing goods and machinery is very proactive. There are some horror stories where people tried to bring in machinery such as drill rigs without going through the proper channels. Once you get cross-wise with customs people, things get locked up in impound and you spend a massive amount of time and money untangling the problem.
“ We recently imported two small drills for prospecting. It took us a while,
but we got a good local customs broker who knew exactly what we had to do, how we had to do it and we had no problem on the Colombian side.
When it comes to choosing counsel, what do you look for? That depends on what we’re doing. As with any counsel the all important question is “Have you done it?” and not “Can you do it?” I don’t think I’ve ever met a lawyer who did not think they could do it, but in my experience there aren’t that many who really have done it. We’ve hired our own in- house counsel because there are precious few attorneys in Colombia who actually are good qualified and competent mining attorneys. Many of the attorneys who hold themselves up to be experts, I would judge to be not nearly as competent as they think.
We steered clear of that. We looked at engaging one attorney who held
himself up to be a mining attorney. We just weren’t comfortable with his acumen, so we found another independent attorney, and that guy was able to do amazing things, he truly could move heaven and earth. We’ve never had any unpleasant experiences, but we are very careful to interview, assess, and judge the real capabilities of any attorney there.
Globally, some of the big firms are better than others, but we find that
international law firms sometimes rest on their laurels and they tend to hire junior attorneys to go out and do the work. So you may be getting bill for
Robert G Carrington President, CEO and Director
Colombian Mines Corporation Vancouver, Canada
All of these issues could be solved with a very simple piece of legislation
that puts a deadline on the permits and issuing mineral titles and provides for default issuance if the regulator fails to act. If you’re looking at issuing water permits it should not take more than two to three weeks at most, if a regulator is assessing an Environmental Impact Statement for a large mining operation, maybe they should have a year, 18 months, or even two years, because the issues are complex and there’s a lot to something like that, but there should be a D-Day where a company knows there will be a definitive yes or no.
About the author Robert G. Carrington, President, CEO and Director of Colombian Mines Corporation, is a Registered Professional Geologist / Registered Engineering Geologist and a graduate of the Mackay School of Mines and Geology at Reno, Nevada. He has more than 30 years domestic and international experience throughout the western hemisphere and has participated in the discovery of deposits containing more than 22 million ounces of gold, including the giant Twin Creeks mine operated by Newmont Mining in Nevada. Active in Colombia since 1992, Mr. Carrington is widely regarded as one of
the early explorers and was instrumental in founding Colombian Mines and securing its impressive property portfolio. Prior to Colombian Mines he served as Director and CEO of Gold Canyon Resources Inc., and has served as a senior executive of many other public and private companies.
72 ENERGY & INFRASTRUCTURE | LATIN AMERICA 2013
We, and I think most modern companies active in Colombia, try very hard to create 'win – win' situations for everyone
$1,000 per hour but the attorney is very junior and getting paid $40 an hour so you really are getting a $40 per hour product. We tend to work with local attorneys we have confidence in as to their competence and capabilities.
Colombia is enough of a new frontier that they, the big multinational
law firms, often haven’t had that much experience or reason to be involved, so they’re learning, just like everyone else.
There are times we have to hire outside consultants or attorneys. We have
former a Secretary of Mines who sits on our advisory board, and we ask him, “Who can handle this issue for us?” Dealing with any Latin country, you have to have somebody who’s well enough connected to help you get hold of the right people.
What is your preference with regard to hourly versus fixed fees? I’ve generally found that the hourly fees wind up being cheaper than fixed fees. One thing I do know is that if an attorney gives you a fixed price, and things go over, the attorney will come back to you wanting you to modify that price. So you’re really better off with the hourly fee.
What would you like to see happen in the near future? In Colombia, the challenge is helping the Colombian government get to a point where they understand the value of time and they can execute and issue permits on timely basis. If they fail in that aspect, their giant mining boom will become giant mining bust.
Many companies are finding that financial institutions are just no longer
confident that you can develop a mine in Colombia. We were, and actually still are, negotiating a possible joint venture on one of our projects with a company. That company was in very serious negotiations with two banks to finance the project, and at the 11th hour both banks pulled out with very similar concerns. They weren’t convinced the company would be able to get permits necessary in a timely fashion to develop the project. You really do see the substantial financial institutions beginning to worry about the per- mitting issues and Colombia’s future.
It’s going to become a major issue to obtain financing in public markets,
if Colombia becomes seen as a place where you can’t do business. Inside Colombia, it all comes down to getting those permits. If I’m seen as not getting the permits I need to drill, my shareholders will go someplace where they can, and I can’t blame them.
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