According to Afronline nearly 1,300 U.S. companies have filed disclosure reports with the SEC describing whether the products they manufacture or sell are made with minerals that may be linked to conflict in central Africa. Monday the 2nd June was the first deadline for the filings under the Dodd Frank Act passed in 2010 and the subsequent 2012 SEC Rule to define exact disclosure requirements and it is reported that most companies expected to file a report on their supply chains have done so. Those reports, known as SD and EX-1.02 are publicly available through the SEC EDGAR website
Companies such as Boeing, Hewlett Packard and Microsoft who have financially supported the iTSCi Programme and regional due diligence, either through Associate Membership, or with a contribution to the initial pilot in 2010, included reference to that in their reports. Many companies also referenced the smelter audit programme CFSP and listed the names of smelters in their supply chain as far as they have been determined. Some explained other activities they had undertaken around issues in the mining sector such as environmental concerns relating to Indonesian tin production. The greatest surprise seems to be the discovery that dozens of companies had been supplied gold by North Korea’s central bank which both provides currency for the regime and carries out refining. Apparently US sanctions ban importing materials from North Korea even if they come from deep within a supply chain and are in a completely different form by the time they reach the end user. This had taken some time to come to light since an earlier version of the smelter list of the CFSI had shown the location of the central bank as South, rather than North Korea.