Biography: Mining

Peter Leon is a partner with Webber Wentzel, where he co-leads the firm's mining, energy and natural resources practice group. His principal areas of practice are public law, particularly natural resources law, black economic empowerment laws (BEE), regulatory aspects of financial services law and international investment law. Recent matters he has been involved with include, inter alia, advising on an international arbitration claim against the South African government in the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (Foresti and others v South Africa), advising on a major project to extend the life of PetroSA's Gas to Liquid (GTL) plant in Mossel Bay, advising the Federal Government of Nigeria on its new mining code, and advising on the Bisha mining project in Eritrea as well as on the Western Cluster Iron Ore Project in Liberia. He has also advised multinational mining groups on the legal implications of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, 2002, as well as various drafts of the Mineral and Petroleum Royalty Bill, 2003-2008.

Peter Leon is the chairman of the mining law committee of the International Bar Association (2009 - 2011). In 2008 and again in 2009, Peter Leon was named by MiningMx as one of the hundred most influential people in the South African mining industry.

Peter Leon received his BA LLB cum laude from the University of Cape Town and his LLM with first class honours from Cambridge University, England, where he was elected senior scholar of Christ's College, Cambridge for academic achievement.

Peter Leon is a well known speaker on the South African as well as African mining industry who is regularly invited to speak at national and international conferences and is frequently cited as an expert in mineral regulatory law.