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BHP Billiton – the largest mining company globally – commands a significant presence in Chile thanks to three major operations in the country, including the largest mine in the world: Mineral Escondida. Constantly looking for improvement, the company’s legal team has undergone a major restructuring in the last two years with the majority of its lawyers joining during the period. Far from being a disadvantage, according to legal manager for projects and supply Daniel Weinstein, the team took this as an opportunity to ‘recruit top talent and create a structure that better suits the needs of the company’. As a result, BHP’s legal team in the country is currently compiled of expert-level lawyers who have studied in the best law schools in Chile and previously worked in the most prominent local law fi rms. ‘A majority of us have earned Master’s degrees abroad, in some of the most prestigious law schools in the US and UK, and several also have experience working abroad at international law firms,’ Weinstein adds. Nicolas Lustig, the department’s leader, who recruited most of the team, has been described as a ‘capable leader’, who constantly emphasises the importance of being a ‘business oriented legal team’. Besides Lustig, the team features two other professionals who previously featured in the GC Powerlist series; Daniel Weinstein, who negotiated contracts worth several billion dollars, and provides continuous advice to the projects and supply groups, and Maria de Lourdes Velazquez former Kimberly Clark lawyer, who joined the team last year to provide advice to non-operated JVs. The team’s recent overhaul has already borne fruit, 2017 has perhaps been the team’s most successful year in recent memory. The team had a key role in the drafting and negotiation of contracts for infrastructure projects worth over $5bn in the last 12 months. These included an EPC contract with a JV between Fluor and Salfa for the construction of a copper concentrator, and a BOOT contract for a desalination plant with a JV between Mitsui and Cobra. Both well in excess of $1bn, these contracts were related to the SGO project, which will extend the life span of Spence, one of BHP’s major mines in Chile. Given the sheer size of BHP’s workforce in Chile, currently comprised of approximately 6,500 direct employees and 10,000 subcontracted employees, the team’s expertise in employment law has also been key. In 2017, it supported the labour relations teams in four collective negotiations and it is expected to support the company in three collective bargaining processes over the next six months. According to Daniel Weinstein the collective bargaining of Minera Escondida in 2017 was ‘one of the most complex labour negotiations in the history of Chile’, and the legal team was key in ‘designing a strategy to manage further losses’. Other areas of excellence in 2017 involved facilitating BHP’s entry to Ecuador, management of complex environmental and community matters and their related environmental litigation, management of several high profile arbitrations and support of non-operated joint-ventures that BHP has in Latin America (Antamina and Cerrejon).