4 March 2011 - To combat illegal exploitation of conflict minerals in Africa, the European Commission is expected to table by November a proposal for an EU law asking large companies to reveal their oil and mining activities to shareholders.
The EU executive will table a proposal to include "mandatory country-by country disclosure" of money flows between mining companies and governments, a senior Commission official told the Financial Times.
The EU law will use the so-called 'Dodd-Frank' bill in the US as a minimum standard, said Klaus Rudischhauser.
The EU proposal is expected to be agreed eighteen months after the Dodd-Frank Act, a bill on so-called "conflict minerals", was adopted in the US (July 2010).
The US law requires oil, gas and mining companies listed on Wall Street to publicly disclose their income and tax payments. It also requires companies to certify whether their products contain minerals from rebel-controlled mines in Congo and other countries with oil and mining activities.
Minerals such as cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) attracted international attention after being labelled 'conflict' or 'blood minerals' as the mining of these resources is reported to finance armed groups, which are waging bloody wars and committing atrocities to intimidate local populations in order to secure control of mines.
For the complete article, please see EurActiv.com.
