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.
1 Comment
Thank you FCPA Blog!
Selva & Roger
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