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August 23, 2011

Broc Romanek: Congress, HR 2759 and Disclosures of "Social Issues" to the SEC.

And, hey, Get the Net. See at The Corporate Counsel.Net Broc Romanek's piece "A Disturbing Trend: Congress Forcing Corporate Disclosure for Social Issues". Excerpts:

Now, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) has introduced a House bill entitled the "Business Transparency on Trafficking and Slavery Act" (H.R. 2759) that would require companies to disclose efforts to identify and address the risks of human trafficking, forced labor, slavery and child labor in their supply chains.

Although these bills are well-meaning, attempting to solve the world's problems through SEC filings simply is the wrong--and very expensive--way to go. How in the world did Congress start thinking they should influence foreign policy, as well as domestic social and environmental issues, through SEC filings?

Well, before Dodd-Frank, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) used an omnibus appropriations bill in early '04 to require companies to disclose business activities in countries designated by the State Department as sponsoring international terrorism (Wolf particularly was targeting Iran). Corp Fin's "Office of Global Security Risk" was born.

Posted by JD Hull at August 23, 2011 12:52 AM

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