Managing Critical Issues & Risks Across Emerging Markets

Speyside Group provides an analytical assessment of an increasingly critical barrier to capital deployment in the global extractive sector: The Difference Between a Legal Permit and a Social Licence. While a legal permit grants a mining enterprise the formal, statutory approval from local authorities to operate, it represents only one half of the execution equation. This briefing explores why a social licence to operate—defined as the complex political, economic, and social dynamics within local communities—is equally indispensable for long-term project delivery. Without a resilient framework for community alignment, operations face severe reputational and operational risks, where local stakeholders can effectively block projects through strikes, legal challenges, protests, and infrastructure disruption. To mitigate these cascading bottlenecks, international mining companies must shift from purely transactional compliance to active, culturally attuned stakeholder engagement.

Speyside Group analyzes the dramatic market shifts within Colombia's presidential race following the landmark first-round election results on May 31, 2026. Surpassing all pre-election projections, political outsider and far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella secured 43.7% of the vote, capturing more than 10 million ballots. He will face left-wing candidate Iván Cepeda of the ruling Pacto Histórico coalition—who finished second with 40.9%—in a highly consequential runoff set for June 21. This surprise outcome has completely upended a race that previously favored Cepeda, triggering immediate institutional tension. While the current Petro administration has publicly questioned the preliminary vote count without evidence, Colombia’s major business associations—including the Consejo Gremial Nacional and ANDI—have demanded absolute respect for the results and called for international oversight. For multinational corporations, this binary, ideologically stark choice carries massive investor implications for foreign direct investment (FDI), tax structures, and regulatory stability across the energy, mining, and infrastructure sectors.

Speyside Group analyzes the critical barriers and unfulfilled expectations surrounding The Lithium Opportunity Mexico Has Yet to Unlock. When the state created the state-owned enterprise LitioMX on August 23, 2022, the strategic resource was slated to anchor Mexico’s industrial future and feed its automotive hubs. However, three years after its creation, Mexico has yet to achieve commercial production. This briefing explores the sharp friction between political intent and severe geological and fiscal constraints. While early political framing touted massive national reserves, recent extensive testing has reclassified Mexico's lithium deposits in clay formations as "scarce or practically non-existent" under current extraction technologies. To prevent a complete structural standstill, the Sheinbaum administration faces intensifying geopolitical trade policy pressures ahead of the upcoming July USMCA joint review, forcing a necessary re-evaluation of how to combine state sovereignty with specialized international private capital.