Joaquín Vicuña del Río is a Chilean lawyer with extensive experience in corporate, mining and natural resources law. He currently serves as Legal Manager at JX Nippon Mining & Metals in Santiago, Chile, where he is responsible for legal, compliance and corporate governance matters relating to the company’s mining operations and strategic investments across Latin America and other regions.

Vicuña holds an LL.M. in Mineral Law and Policy from the University of Dundee’s Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy (CEPMLP), awarded in 2015. He also completed the MBA Essentials programme at the London School of Economics in 2022, further strengthening his legal expertise with key business and management capabilities. His academic background additionally includes diplomas in Natural Resources and Energy Law from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and in Tax and Customs Law from Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez. He qualified as a lawyer upon completing his law degree at Universidad de los Andes.

Vicuña’s professional career encompasses high-profile roles in both the private and public sectors. He began by advising law firms, private investment funds and multinational corporations on resources law, corporate and regulatory matters, and since 2015 has provided specialist insights to international consulting firms on mining regulation, corporate governance and strategic transactions. Between 2010 and 2014, he served in the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Finance of Chile, notably as chief legal counsel to the administrative unit for tax and customs courts, where he contributed to the establishment of the specialised tax and customs tribunal system. In 2015, he joined Alessandri & Cia, one of Chile’s leading law firms, where he advised on mining, energy and corporate transactions.

He subsequently spent more than six years at SCM Minera Lumina Copper Chile (Minera Caserones), a major copper mining operation, where he advanced to the role of senior corporate counsel. In this capacity, he provided comprehensive legal support on corporate governance, labour issues, regulatory compliance and contractual negotiations, both domestically and with international partners. He played a key role in significant transactions, including the sale of Caserones to Lundin Mining, one of the most notable mining deals in Chile in recent years.

Alongside his professional practice, Vicuña lectures on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, teaching courses in mining, sustainability, and natural resources law at leading Chilean universities.

He is widely recognised for his expertise in mining and natural resources law, corporate governance, and cross-border transactions, combining legal acumen with a profound understanding of the regulatory and commercial challenges facing the extractive industries in Latin America and beyond.