On July 2, 2013, the District Court for the District of Columbia
struck down Rule 13q-1 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
Adopted by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC) in August 2012, Rule 13q-1 required "resource extraction
issuers" to file publicly available annual reports with
information relating to any payments made to the U.S. federal or a
foreign government for the purpose of the commercial development of
oil, natural gas or minerals, beginning with fiscal years ending
after September 30, 2013.
The District Court identified two substantial errors leading to
its invalidation of the rule:
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contrary to the SEC's interpretation, the SEC was not
mandated to require the public disclosure of the issuers'
annual reports containing details of resource extraction payments.
Instead, the relevant statute could be read to provide the SEC with
discretion to require issuers to disclose that information to the
SEC confidentially. The SEC
