In statements released on April 7, 2017, the acting chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Michael S. Piwowar, and the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance provided welcome news to companies concerning the SEC’s administration of the conflict minerals rule.
On May 20, 2015, by a narrow margin the left wing of the European Parliament successfully pushed through amendments to a proposed conflict minerals law that would, if enacted, be much more onerous and involve hundreds of thousands more European businesses in the process of tracking conflict minerals than the regulation proposed by the European Commission and supported by the Parliament’s International Trade Committee and industry.
Tracking regulatory changes in the oil and gas industry is no minor undertaking. After all, when someone speaks of “the oil and gas industry,” that person isn’t simply referencing some narrowly defined zone of activity.
According to a Bloomberg BNA report, a representative of the Chamber of Commerce, one of the plaintiffs in National Association of Manufacturers, Inc. v. SEC, the conflict minerals case currently pending in the DC Circuit, claims that the litigation “is sparking new interest by Congress in the requirements.”
