As we approach the end of conflict minerals compliance year 4 (with 3 years of reports behind us), companies are budgeting for how they will address conflict minerals in 2017. Since the SEC rule took effect, supply chain professionals and in-house lawyers have found that compliance is complicated, time-consuming, and still changing because of the … Continue Reading
If your organization has a financial year-end of March 31, 2016 and is covered by the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA), yours is in the first wave of MSA statements (MSA Statements) that must be published. The MSA Statement will set out what steps your organization has taken during the financial year to ensure … Continue Reading
Many of you are asking what is happening with the EU conflict minerals regulation, what is the likely timing for adopting the regulation, and what should you do now to prepare. Process — The development of the EU conflict minerals regulation has now entered the final negotiation phase. This phase, known as the “trialogue negotiations,” involves informal meetings between the … Continue Reading
Companies and industry groups have been working for over 3 years on investigation and due diligence processes to determine the source and chain of custody of the tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold (3TG) in their products. But, there could now be pressure to add to the list of conflict minerals. Compliance Week raised this question last week in … Continue Reading
In a January 21, 2016 release titled Extension of Comment Period for Disclosure of Payments by Resource Extraction Issuers, the Securities and Exchange Commission extended the comment periods for the revised proposed Rule 13q-1 (and the related amendment to Form SD). That proposed rule relates to the disclosure of payments by resource extraction issuers in connection with the commercial development of … Continue Reading
The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2012 (“California Act”) applies to retailers and manufacturers with annual worldwide gross receipts over $100 million that are doing business in California. Those entities are required to disclose (by statements posted on their websites) their efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their direct supply chains … Continue Reading
When the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s conflict minerals rule was issued in 2012, US reporting companies (and their suppliers) developed and implemented conflict minerals compliance programs. Companies have continued to enhance and beef up their programs since then. Now, companies should be supplementing their compliance programs to be ready to address the requirements of … Continue Reading
As we discussed in posts on September 3, 2015 and on October 2, 2015, Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act required the SEC to issue resource extraction payment rules. The purpose of those rules was to promote the federal government’s desire for transparency about resource extraction payments made by commercial entities to governments around the world. The initial … Continue Reading
On October 29, 2015, the UK Government issued Guidance on the requirements of the Modern Slavery Act. The UK Modern Slavery Act requires many commercial organizations doing business in the UK to post a slavery and human trafficking statement on their homepages. It is now clear that those businesses (especially those with year-ends on or after March 31, 2016) need to turn their … Continue Reading
There has been a lot of discussion about the case against Costco relating to its California Transparency in Supply Chains Act disclosure. Here is the link to the post about the Costco case that I co-wrote for our Global Supply Chain Law Blog . This case is an example of how supply chain policy and disclosure can lead to litigation. … Continue Reading
