About

Christopher Lemon joined First Quantum in 2007 as general counsel. ‘The offer was too good to turn down as it afforded me the opportunity to work in a rapidly expanding global mining company with operations, at the time, primarily in Africa (Zambia, DR Congo and Mauritania)’. As an executive and advisor to the board Lemon played a key role in developing and executing a strategic plan to grow the company through commodity and geographic diversification. Lemon has been described as a leader who is able to maintain a good balance between covering all legal bases and at the same time allowing senior managers to execute their growth strategies. One nominator explains how Lemon has contributed in many ways to First Quantum’s growth: ‘He is very knowledgeable about a broad range of corporate, securities, governance, litigation and technical issues. As a result, he can be hands on or take an oversight role. In either cases he maintains leadership of the legal function. So in my view, he has played a critical role in all of First Quantum’s acquisitions, in its litigation with ENRC (which was very successfully resolved) and in First Quantum’s financings’. Lemon has been instrumental in a number of monumental legal cases. When discussing his biggest achievements he points to a dispute in 2009/10, two of the company’s major assets in the Democratic Republic of Congo were arbitrarily expropriated. He led the company’s legal team through international arbitration in Paris and Washington, as well as litigation in the British Virgin Islands. This included representing the company’s joint venture partners the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank and the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa. The dispute became an international media story, which triggered significant corporate governance discussions in the UK and Canada. The dispute involved the UK and Canadian governments, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the G12 and the Paris Club, all of which Lemon led. Speaking of the event he says, ‘we ultimately settled the dispute for $1.25bn. I am told this is the largest settlement in international arbitration history. This was a major victory not only for our shareholders, but also for raising the governance and business ethics flag in the fight against corporate and state corruption’.