These 77 countries have extractive industries disclosure rules

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.

Here are the 77 countries that adhere to some sort of payment transparency standard in the extractive industries: 

1.   Afghanistan

2.   Albania

3.   Austria

4.   Azerbaijan

5.   Belgium

6.   Bulgaria

7.   Burkina Faso

8.   Cameroon

9.   Canada

10.  Chad

11.  Colombia

12.  Côte d’Ivoire

13.  Croatia

14.  Cyprus

15.  Czech Republic

16.  Democratic Republic of Congo

17.  Denmark

18.  Dominican Republic

19.  Estonia

20.  Ethiopia

21.  Finland

22.  France

23.  Germany

24.  Ghana

25.  Greece

26.  Guatemala

27.  Guinea

28.  Honduras

29.  Hungary

30.  Indonesia

31.  Iraq

32.  Ireland

33.  Italy

34.  Kazakhstan

35.  Kyrgyz Republic

36.  Latvia

37.  Liberia

38.  Lithuania

39.  Luxembourg

40.  Madagascar

41.  Malawi

42.  Mali

43.  Malta

44.  Mauritania

45.  Mongolia

46.  Mozambique

47.  Myanmar

48.  Netherlands

49.  Niger

50.  Nigeria

51.  Norway

52.  Papua New Guinea

53.  Peru

54.  Philippines

55.  Poland

56.  Portugal

57.  Republic of the Congo

58.  Romania

59.  Sao Tome and Principe

60.  Senegal

61.  Seychelles

62.  Sierra Leone

63.  Slovak Republic

64.  Slovenia

65.  Solomon Islands

66.  Spain

67.  Sweden

68.  Tajikistan

69.  Tanzania

70.  Timor-Leste

71.  Togo

72.  Trinidad and Tobago

73.  Ukraine

74.  United Kingdom

75.  United States of America

76.  Yemen

77.  Zambia

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This extraordinary list was developed during research for a paper for the OECD written by Selva Ozelli and Roger Russell.

They’re tax attorneys and legal and accounting analysts, with special expertise on the extraterritorial application of the FCPA via international tax rules.

Their OECD paper is here.

A table they created showing each of the 77 countries and the basis for its extractive industries disclosure regime is here (the OECD didn’t publish the table).

Our thanks to the authors for generously sharing their research with the FCPA Blog’s readers.

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Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog.