Michael R. Littenberg is a partner at Ropes & Gray LLP. This post is based on two Ropes & Gray publications by Mr. Littenberg, Julia L. Chen, and Emily K. Burke.
After 1,627 days and enough law firm memos to deforest a small country, the litigation relating to the Conflict Minerals Rule came to an end [April 3, 2017]. In this post, we discuss what this means for calendar year 2016 compliance, as well as the many other moving pieces relating to the Rule.
The Court’s Final Judgment
[April 3, 2017], Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a District Court Judge in the District of Columbia, entered a final judgment in the Conflict Minerals Rule case. In a short three paragraph opinion, the District Court (1) declared that Section 1502 of Dodd-Frank, Rule 13p-1 thereunder and Form SD violate the First Amendment to the extent that the statute and the rule require companies to report to the SEC and state on their websites that any of their products “have not been found to be ‘DRC conflict free,’” (2) held unlawful and set aside the Rule to the extent that it requires companies to report to the SEC and state on their websites that any of their products “have not been found to be ‘DRC conflict free’” and (3) remands to the SEC, to take action in furtherance of the Court’s decision.