On December 16, the Securities and Exchange Commission voted to adopt final rules that will require resource extraction issuers that are required to file reports under Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”) to disclose payments made to the US federal government or foreign governments for the commercial development of oil, natural gas or minerals.

The rules implement Section 13(q) of the Exchange Act, which was added by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The rules are intended to (1) increase the transparency of payments to governments for the purpose of the commercial development of their oil, natural gas and minerals; and (2) comply with the Congressional Review Act.

The adopted rules require a domestic or foreign reporting issuer to disclose payments made by the issuer or a subsidiary or entity controlled by the issuer to the US federal government or a foreign government if the issuer engages in the commercial development of oil, natural gas or minerals.

The final rules will be effective 60 days following publication in the Federal Register.

The SEC’s press release is available here.