About

Nicholas Myers assumed his current position in 2009 as the inaugural general counsel for global mining company MMG. Prior to this, he had been practicing resources law for over 25 years including as in-house counsel for BHP Billiton, primarily in the iron ore business. He has advised on a variety of cross-border transactions, resource acquisitions, divestments and projects across the globe including in Australia, South America, Africa and Asia. His expertise is in the mining and infrastructure sectors having worked in the copper, molybdenum, iron ore, zinc, energy coal, titanium and manganese commodity categories.

Myers established and built the MMG legal team which now comprises of 18 lawyers, creating the internal structure of the department and establishing its legal and governance system from scratch. During his time as general counsel, Myers has overseen the legal aspects of many ground-breaking projects for MMG including the US$10bn acquisition of the Las Bambas Copper Project in Peru. After a successful ramp-up and development the project is one of the top five copper projects in the world. The US$1.3bn takeover of Anvil Mining, a company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and the acquisition of the Kinsevere Copper Project located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were also overseen by Myers. As well as corporate matters such as the acquisition of the former OZ Minerals assets by MMR, listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the change of company name to MMG Limited. In terms of transactions he also oversaw the sales of the Golden Grove, Century, Avebury and Sepon mines, and oversaw the arbitration of a US$500m rights issue completed in December 2016.

Asked about his legal team’s strength and the process of creating a legal department, Myers says: ‘MMG is a growth company and so as the company has grown we have seen the legal department itself transform and grow from humble beginnings with a purely Australian group of lawyers [and] secretarial staff to an office that now has legal [and] secretarial professionals in Australia, Hong Kong, Peru and Africa’.