Biography: Mining

Cristián Quinzio is the senior partner of Quinzio & Cia. His main areas of practice include mining and water law, corporate law, foreign investment contracts and regulations, mergers and acquisitions of mining companies and project finance.

Mr Quinzio served as in-house general counsel for Phelps Dodge for its activities in Chile and the southern cone of Latin America until 1997, when he moved into private practice. He has also served as a foreign official for Chile. Mr Quinzio obtained his degree from the Universidad de Chile in 1975. In the same year he was awarded a Fulbright Fletcher Scholarship, which led him to study for a postgraduate degree in international law at The Fletcher School in Boston, thereafter serving as an officer in the Chilean Mission to the United Nations in New York. He completed the first tax law programme of the Law School of Universidad de Chile, equivalent to a modern-day LLM in tax law.

Mr Quinzio is a professor of mining law at the Universidad de Chile, in addition to teaching mining law and foreign investment at the Mining Engineering School (also at the Universidad de Chile) on the Masters degree in mineral economics programme, co-shared with the Courtin University of Western Australia. Mr Quinzio is a frequent lecturer in both Chile and abroad on mining and foreign investment matters related to Chile. He is a member of the Colegio de Abogados de Chile AG, of the Asociación de Abogados Mineros Latinoamericanos and of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation.

Mr Quinzio has assisted with numerous mining projects developed in Chile since 1984 with regards to foreign investment contracts, corporate law, mining concessions, surface and water rights, feasibility studies, project financing, construction and operations and enlisting processes in different stock exchange markets. Mr Quinzio also serves as counsel for several major engineering companies, specialising in EPC and EPCM contracts, including claim and arbitral procedures. He has also assisted companies in the development of mining projects in other Latin American countries, such as Peru and Argentina.