The FCPA Blog | By: Richard L. Cassin |Monday, May 22, 2017 at 7:28AM:
The U.S. Senate voted in February to repeal an SEC rule that would have required oil and gas and mining companies to disclose each year all of their payments to foreign governments for exploration and production rights, permits, taxes, and other things.
The disclosure rule was set to go into effect in 2018.
Nearly all natural resource deals involve foreign governments, which typically control their country’s resources directly or through state-owned enterprises.
Energy companies, for example, usually pay foreign governments for the right to explore for oil and gas, and then they pay royalties on the eventual production. Those payments, as well as taxes and other fees, would have been disclosed each year under the SEC rule.
Although the United States has opted out of an extractive industries disclosure regime, 77 other countries adhere to some sort of payment standard in the extractive industries.
The requirements arise in various ways – in some cases under legislation, or through tax rules, accounting standards, and treaties. Fifty-one of the countries are members of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative.
Below are just a few of the 77 countries that adhere to some sort of payment transparency standard in the extractive industries: (To see the full list – please click here.)
1. Afghanistan
5. Belgium
8. Cameroon
9. Canada
16. Democratic Republic of Congo
17. Denmark
19. Estonia
21. Finland
22. France
23. Germany
25. Greece
28. Honduras…
74. United Kingdom
75. United States of America
76. Yemen
77. Zambia
