Financial Transparency Coalition

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. Section 1504 of the Act requires oil, gas, and mineral producers who report to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to disclose any payments made to foreign governments in the process of developing and extracting materials. Section 1504, or the Cardin-Lugar amendment as it is known, promotes much-needed transparency in the extractive industries sector. It represents the first time a country-by-country reporting policy has been introduced into US law, albeit on a limited scale. The cost of corruption in the extractive...

WASHINGTON, DC – One year out from passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act and three months after it was supposed to come into effect, a key anti-corruption and transparency measure—the Cardin-Lugar provision (Section 1504)—is still sitting on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) drafting board. The provision to require oil, gas, and mineral companies to disclose payments made to foreign governments is considered an historic move towards shedding light on the operations of a multi-billion dollar industry.

‘We don’t care how much tax we pay, as long as you tell us how much it is, let us pay it and leave us alone’ Perhaps not what you might expect to hear from the head of tax from a major global bank. But as the most influential tax professionals from across America gathered in DC to discuss the latest developments in business taxation with the OECD, simplicity and certainty was the resounding call from business. The OECD is looking for its place in the world, and it’s pretty clear that this “rich countries’ club” is not as dominant as...

Publish What You Pay and Eurodad have launched a briefing paper (PDF) calling on the EU to propose legally binding measures to require natural resource companies to publish key financial information for each country and project in which they operate. In recent months, civil society groups working on financial transparency and on tax and development have actively engaged the European Commission and other European institutions responsible for drafting key legislative and non-legislative proposals that will potentially reform European financial reporting standards. This paper aims to contribute to the current debate...