Communicator
Newsletter
by Cheryl A. Ikegami
In the Spring 2017 issue of our Corporate Communicator, we included a brief discussion of the status of the conflict minerals rules contained in Rule 13p-1 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), and the related Form SD (the “Rules”). The Rules implement Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”). We noted that in litigation challenging the Rules brought by the National Association of Manufacturers, Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America and Business Roundtable (the “Litigation”), the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the Rules violated the First Amendment to the extent that they require companies to state in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and on their websites that any of their products have “not been found to be ‘DRC conflict free.’” We noted that the SEC had declined to appeal that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court and the case had been remanded to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for further proceedings.