Mason Law acts for royalty and streaming companies, mine finance funds and mining companies on the creation, acquisition, sale and restructuring of royalties and metal streams, on projects across five continents.
Royalties and streams are now core financing tools for the mining sector, and some of its most heavily negotiated documents. Rob Mason has acted on royalty and stream transactions for buyers and sellers, from early-stage exploration royalties to the sale of royalties on producing mines.
Mandates include acquisitions of new and existing royalties, royalty portfolio purchases, sales of royalties by funds, vendors and project owners, stream purchases and restructurings, and the royalty terms built into option, earn-in and M&A transactions.
The work is commercial as much as legal: how revenue is calculated, what can be deducted, which ground is covered, and what happens on a change of control or an operator’s insolvency.
Mason Law negotiates those terms with the end in mind — what the royalty or stream will be worth, and to whom, years after closing.
“Net smelter return” means different things depending on how transport, refining and penalty charges are defined. The definition, not the headline rate, often drives the value.
Whether a royalty follows claims that are dropped and re-staked nearby can matter as much as the original property boundary.
Buy-back pricing and timing, consent rights and rights of first refusal shape what a royalty is worth to its holder, and what the project is worth to a buyer.
In Canada, whether a royalty is drafted and registered as an interest in land can decide whether it survives the operator’s insolvency.
Rob takes the first call personally.
General information only, not legal advice. Representative matters include transactions led by Robert Mason at Mason Law and at previous firms.