Profile: Michael Cuthbert

Mining

Biography: Mining

Michael Cuthbert is the regional managing partner of Clifford Chance LLP for Central and Eastern Europe, the Russian Federation and CIS. He is also the managing partner of the Moscow office, specialising in corporate, banking, capital markets and mining practices.

Michael received his bachelor of laws degree from University College London in 1977 where he graduated with the faculty medal and prize. Following his professional exams, he joined Slaughter and May in 1978 and, in 1982, having qualified as a solicitor in 1980, joined Clifford-Turner. He became a partner in Clifford-Turner in 1986 and in Clifford Chance (on Clifford Turner's merger with Coward Chance) in 1987. Between 1989 and 1993 he was resident in Clifford Chance's New York office and was the managing partner of that office from 1990 to 1992. He moved to Moscow in 2002.

Michael has acted for a number of companies, banks and governments in relation to mining investment matters, acquisitions, privatisations and financings. In 2005 and 2006 he advised the Rosoboronexport State Corporation in the acquisition of a controlling stake of Vsmpo-Avisma, the world's largest producer of titanium. Michael represented the government of Zambia from 1995 to 2003 in relation to the privatisation of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines Ltd and subsequently represented the principal mining company in Zambia, Konkola Copper Mines Plc, until its acquisition by Vendanta Resources Plc in 2004. He has advised on mining matters in Zambia, South Africa, Tanzania, Angola, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as the Russian Federation and CIS. Michael Cuthbert was recommended as a leading Russia mining expert by Who's Who Legal (from 2005 to 2007).

Since joining the Moscow office, Michael has been involved in a number of due diligence reviews, acquisitions, corporate reconstructions, financings and off-take arrangements in the Russian and CIS mining industries.