Too Weak to Work? EU’s Conflict Minerals Regulation

The European Parliament’s International Trade Committee (ITA) has recently voted on the amendments to the EU conflict minerals regulation.

No Binding Transparency Standards for Conflict Minerals

According to an article published by EurActiv, Parliament Adopts Relaxed Measures on Conflict Minerals, the ITA adopted the regulation:

“By 22 votes to 16, with two abstentions, but rejected a proposal to impose binding transparency standards on the whole supply chain for these minerals.”

The Members of the European Parliament have chosen to “conserve a large part of the system based on business self-certification and responsible labeling of supply chains.” The vote was in favor of a mandatory system of certification for EU’s smelters and refiners, and requires “to use responsibly source minerals and display an approved European importer on the label.”

The recent ruling on the proposal has left some in disappointment according to the recent EurActiv article. Those in opposition to the outcome, the left, and the Greens, believe the newly adopted system should “be binding standards at all stages in the supply chain.”

The draft regulation that has been adopted by the International Trade Committee of the European Parliament still needs to be approved by the entire European Parliament in May.

US Conflict Minerals Reporting Year Two

While the European Parliament continues to develop and implement conflict minerals regulation for the EU, publicly-traded companies in the United States are already in year two of conflict minerals reporting for the Dodd-Frank Act, Section 1502. The aim of the US regulation has been to provide transparency into corporate practices and specifically to reduce funding for armed groups involved in human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and surrounding countries.

What issuers and non-issuers can learn from the recent conflict minerals filings will be addressed in an upcoming webinar. The webinar will assist publicly traded companies with their upcoming smelter disclosures and non-issuers and suppliers with requests from their customers. Additionally, DF S1502 implications on reporting smelters and refiners, smelter reporting formats, issuer vs non-issuer trends, and filing best practices, will be discussed during the webinar.