JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – A specialist mining law firm, which prefers people to paper, has created an outsourced compliance solution for Africa’s mining industry.

NSDV will not rely solely on the paper trail when a client calls with an issue, but instead phone, WhatsApp, or drive there and chat to the officials.

“Our view is that people are behind transactions and the better our relationships, the better our offering to clients who rely on those relationships,” NSDV director and co-founder Lili Nupen states in a release that describes the firm’s contemporary brand of law as being exceptionally focused on relationship building.

NSDV highlights that the global trend towards green energy and sustainable environmental management is placing almost impossible regulatory pressure on mining companies and the bodies that regulate them.

“South African mineral right holders operate within a highly complex legislative environment, and many are looking for credible solutions to ease the compliance and administrative burden in the mining sector,” the firm adds. 

From the multitude of municipal bylaws to the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, National Environmental Management Act – “and the various 14 Acts, regulations, and charters in-between to mention a few” – it is extremely complex to navigate, says Nupen.

“That’s why we created a simple compliance solution that removes the complexity for our clients,” she adds.

The law firm’s mineral right management service will track and monitor all reporting obligations, coordinate reporting to all regulatory authorities, assess and manage legal and compliance risks, secure timeous approvals of regulatory applications, and provide legal responses to directives, regulatory appeals, and administrative errors.

Managed will be everything from creating a mineral rights data repository in the initial phase, to regulator and stakeholder relationship strategy development and bi-annual compliance and risk reporting, the firm says in the release to Mining Weekly.

Another offering being launched includes risk consulting and management and obtaining mine closure certificates as an outsourced service.