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Richard L. Abbott is an international business lawyer, with over 30 years experience in the mining and energy industries, in acquisitions and divestitures, joint ventures, marketing, and planning, negotiation, and implementation of complex projects, in such areas as investment promotion, infrastructure, risk management and political risk, corporate structure, project finance and dispute settlement.
He served as legal consultant to the Inter-American Investment Corporation, responsible for direct and co-financed equity and loan transactions with small and medium scale private enterprises and privatizations in Latin America. He has been a United Nations minerals consultant, where he undertook a comprehensive study comparing Colombian policies under the Drummond/Carbocol contract with the investment practices of several countries, followed by an assessment of coal development potential in Peru. He also advised the Bolivian Government on legal reform proposals for privatization in the mining sector.
Mr. Abbott was Manager of the Law Department and Secretary of Belco Petroleum (subsidiary of Enron) responsible for concession and association agreements in several countries, joint ventures and expropriation of company operations in Peru.
Prior to the Belco, he was Vice President - Law and Risk Management Coordinator of St. Joe International Corporation, the international operating company of St. Joe Minerals before and after its acquisition by Fluor. He was project manager for the acquisition of a Peruvian mining company; coordinated planning and negotiations for the Pachon copper project in Argentina; planned, structured and negotiated exploration and development joint ventures with British, Dutch, Chilean Peruvian, US and other interests, including privatization of state-owned properties in Peru; negotiation of engineering and construction agreements for the El Indio mine, and negotiated unique OPIC political risk policies covering debt and equity investments in turn facilitating renegotiation of El Indio financing agreements.
Mr. Abbott also worked with Exxon Corporation and various affiliates, including serving as Head of the New York Legal Group of Creole Petroleum during its nationalization in Venezuela, responsible for SEC compliance and merger appraisal litigation; planning and financing of foreign petrochemical projects; and planning and negotiation of divestment of manufacturing operations in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Central America, the Caribbean and Philippines.
Mr. Abbott has a BA with honors from Brown University, JD and LLM degrees from the University of Miami, and attended the Columbia University Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law. He is admitted to practice in New York, New Jersey and Florida. Through the United States Council for International Business, he coordinated activities in support of establishment of the Multilateral Investment Guaranty Agency. Chairman of the Committee on Inter-American Affairs of The Association of the Bar of the City of New York, where he planned and participated as moderator in seminars on debt/equity conversion programs, co-sponsored by The Council of Americas and Shearson Lehman.
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