Rafael Vergara is partner and head of Carey y Cía.’s Natural Resources, Energy and Environment Group. His practice focuses on natural resources, mining, water rights, energy, environment, surface lands, project financing, corporate/commercial, municipal and planning, health and medicines. Since 1996, Mr. Vergara has been Professor of Mining Law at the Universidad de Chile, and from 2003 at the Universidad de Los Andes. He has given special courses on mining law organized by the Judiciary Academy of Chile, for judges and members of the Courts of Appeals. He has also presented papers on Chilean energy and natural resources regulations at numerous meetings, both in Chile and abroad. Currently he is member of the panel of the Arbitration Center of the Santiago Chamber of Commerce. He is member of the Board of the Chilean Bar Association, of the legal committee of the National Mining Association (SONAMI), of the Inter-Pacific Bar Association, of the International Bar Association, of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, and of the informal association Abogados Mineros Latinoamericanos (AMLA). Mr. Vergara studied law at the Universidad de Chile being admitted to the Bar in 1987. He was a participant in the 1993 course of the Academy of American and International Law of the Southwestern Legal Foundation in Dallas, Texas, USA and in the 1997 Program of Instruction for Lawyers of the Harvard University Law School. He is fluent in Spanish and English.