Memo to the SEC on the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has been working to write rules for the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act for several months now. Of particular interest to CCSI is section 1504, which would require oil, gas and mining companies to report payments made to governments for those natural resources. The law takes its inspiration from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Resource-rich countries that voluntarily adopt the EITI require both the corporate disclosure that Dodd Frank will require as well as government disclosure of revenues received from companies.
As a part of the rule-making process, the SEC invited the public to provide comments and research to assist with implementation of section 1504 (among others). CCSI submitted research showing that this proposed law would not violate foreign confidentiality laws or cause companies to violate confidentiality clauses in their contracts with governments. The submission emphasized that, if anything, the opposite is true: countries are moving towards requiring these disclosures, not vice versa. The submission can be found here.