SEC

From the Lawyers: SEC Actions Dodd-Frank Disclosure Requirements for ‘Resource Extraction Issuers’

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On August 22nd, the SEC adopted Dodd-Frank mandated rules that will require certain oil and gas companies to disclose payments made to U.S. and/or foreign governments in the course of their commercial development of oil, gas and minerals projects. To date 20+ law firms have written alerts on the new rules and the clear consensus is summed up by Skadden’s warning that “although the deadline for the first Form SD is more than a year away, resource extraction issuers may have a significant amount of work to do in preparation.”

The headline numbers are these: 1,100 resource extraction issuers are expected to exceed a de minimis, project-based payment threshold of $100,000 and incur the obligation to spend an aggregate of $1 billion on initial compliance efforts. These efforts will culminate with an obligation to file payment disclosure with the SEC on a new Form SD for fiscal years ending after September 30, 2013. Keep reading →

Published September 11, 2012 at 12:00 PM

Disclosure Requirements for Natural Resource Companies: Baring All in Europe

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European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso makes a statement on recent developments in Romania following a meeting on July 18, 2012, at the European Union Headquarters in Brussels.

It’s hard to imagine a more uncomfortable issue for U.S. and European natural resource companies than the required disclosure of payments to the resource-owning “governments” with which they do business. How exactly is a company expected to reconcile the normative virtue of transparency with the mean, dollar-driven, shovel-in-the-ground reality that defines much of the resource-rich (and nicety-poor) world? At what point does transparency simply accelerate the deconstruction of a company’s competitiveness (no matter how civic-minded relative to those of unfettered competitors from the east) BRIC by BRIC? Keep reading →

Published July 18, 2012 at 11:15 AM

BrightSource IPO Withdrawal Highlights Solar Challenges

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Last September, Breaking Energy named five cleantech IPO‘s that were set to break the charts and change the game for renewable energy on the stock market. One of those five was Brightsource.

But despite the hype that had some industry insiders calling the BrightSource IPO the possible start to a cleantech gold rush, the thermal solar company cancelled its initial public offering last week due to what the company said were “adverse market conditions.” Keep reading →

Published April 17, 2012 at 12:15 PM