About

During his five years at Newcrest Mining, Lachlan McMurtrie has advised on almost all aspects of the company’s business including exploration and M&A growth activities across a wide range of jurisdictions in South and North America, South East Asia, Australia and West Africa. ‘McMurtrie is a tenacious, commercially orientated, highly intelligent and experienced in-house counsel with an ability to undertake and manage legal matters across a broad range of issues, areas and jurisdictions in which the company operates. He has successfully advised and managed the legal work in relation to mining operational issues, M&A transactions, exploration joint ventures, and regulatory issues across the globe and has acted as mentor and supervisor to junior lawyers’, says one nominator. McMurtrie has been promoted twice, from corporate counsel to senior corporate counsel in April 2016 and most recently to group manager legal in March 2019, as co-leader of the legal function reporting to the general counsel and company secretary as part of the broader legal, secretariat and tenure team. McMurtrie has been integral to helping reboot and streamline Newcrest’s approach to new country entry to support global growth activities from 2015 with a particular focus on the Americas. Amongst his proudest achievements he mentions working seamlessly across many different jurisdictions, legal systems and cultures in supporting the global growth initiatives and operations often in emerging markets with challenging regulatory frameworks for foreign investment and mining. ‘In particular, my experiences in London advising a wide range of clients in emerging markets helped me to develop a keen understanding of the importance of anti-bribery and corruption due diligence and controls’, says McMurtrie. On joining Newcrest, along with another lawyer who had a political risk consultancy background, he further improved the company’s focus on these issues in recognition of the evolving regulatory environment, including developing a company guideline for counterparty due diligence and working on improvements with the ABC policy and standards and guidelines of the company. Reflecting further on other achievements he adds that he has enjoyed ‘being a strong influence in driving how our legal team operates today without silos and as one team – now with co-leaders, which is somewhat unusual – to manage a large workload across multiple jurisdictions and time zones during an exciting growth and innovation phase for the company’.