Financial Transparency Coalition

LONDON - Global Witness is outraged by a lawsuit filed by the American Petroleum Institute (API), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others to gut Section 1504, an important anti-corruption provision of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. (1) By seeking to nullify this provision, API, whose members include British Petroleum, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell, and other industry groups are demonstrating that they have something to hide. Any claims by API that they support transparency efforts are preposterous when they are not only trying to weaken the rules but to strike Section 1504 in its...

This post is the second part of a two-post series. The first post, on the economic costs of Section 1504, is available here. Embedded into the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act–also known as the “financial overhaul bill”—was Section 1504, which will require companies listed on the U.S. stock exchange to disclose payments to governments for oil, gas, and mining. The American Petroleum Industry (API), a U.S. trade association for the oil and gas industry, is pushing back against this provision. In a letter to the SEC, API claims Section 1504 defies Executive Order 13563, which Obama signed...

In July of last year President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act–also known as the “financial overhaul bill”—into law. Embedded into the Dodd-Frank Act was Section 1504, which required companies listed on the U.S. stock exchange to disclose payments to governments for oil, gas, and mining. Under these provisions, companies would provide this information in their SEC filings and it would be publicly available. Unsurprisingly, the American Petroleum Industry (API), a U.S. trade association for the oil and gas industry, is pushing back. In a letter to the SEC, API claims Section 1504 defies Executive...