Pieter Colyn

Pieter Colyn is an Executive at ENS and Head of the Mine and Occupational Health and Safety practice. His practice focuses on Mining Law, with extensive experience in general corporate and commercial litigation, employment law, environmental law and administrative law, and a specific focus on mine and occupational health and safety law.

Pieter has represented clients in the mining, construction/manufacturing and engineering industries, as well as in the ferrochrome, steel, vanadium and iron-making industries. He has personally appeared for a variety of companies, corporations and top executive and management personnel in accident investigations and inquiries, in particular following major mine and occupational accidents and disasters in South Africa's Westonaria, Rustenburg, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Free State and Northern Cape areas. He has also appeared in criminal matters and inquests.

He has successfully assisted a number of employers in conducting health and safety audits, as well as in the preparation and implementation of statutory appointment letters and in dealing with statutory enforcement measures (such as closure orders, prohibition notices, suspension of certificates of competency and recommendations for the imposition of administrative fines) in terms of the applicable South African mine and occupational health and safety legislation.

Pieter has presented various papers and training courses, and has conducted annual seminars on his field of expertise. He is the co-author of Commentary to the Construction Regulations, 2014, and Occupational Health and Safety Law, a loose-leaf commentary on the South African Occupational Health and Safety Act, 1993, both published by LexisNexis.

In 2000, he obtained the highest mark for any thesis in the Faculty of Law at the University of Johannesburg, where he read for his LLM. He holds a BLC (Cum Laude) and an LLB from the University of Pretoria, and an LLM (Cum Laude) and an Advanced Diploma in Labour Law (Cum Laude) from the University of Johannesburg. He is admitted as an attorney of the High Court of South Africa.

He is recognised by IFLR1000 as Highly Regarded for Project Development, by Chambers Global Guide for Energy and Natural Resources: Mining Health and Safety, by The Legal 500 EMEA for Mining, by Best Lawyers for Mining, and by Who's Who Legal for Mining in South Africa.