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1 Transparency Recommendations Released
for Disclosing Canadian Mining Company
Payments to Governments
By Andrew Godfrey
7 Canada and the United States Reach an
Intergovernmental Agreement on Foreign
Account Tax Compliance Act
By Jonathan Lafrance
Transparency Recommendations
Released for Disclosing Canadian Mining
Company Payments to Governments
By Andrew Godfrey ( andrew.godfrey@nortonrosefulbright.com), Norton Rose Fulbright
On Jan. 16, 2014, the Resource Revenue Transparency Working Group
(the Working Group) released its final
recommendations for the creation of
mandatory transparency standards
that would see mining companies
publicly traded on Canadian stock
exchanges publicly disclose payments
to governments.
The Working Group, consisting of
the Mining Association of Canada,
the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada, Publish What You
Pay Canada and the Revenue Watch
Institute, was formed in September
2012 with the objective of improving
transparency in the mining sector in
Canada and overseas. Our legal update
from June 2013 provides an overview
of the Working Group’s background
and the international movement toward increased disclosure.
The group’s final recommendations
will weigh heavily on legislators, who
are expected to introduce legislation
for mandatory reporting in 2014.
This update will outline the Working Group’s recommendations. Public
issuers in the mining industry should
expect that such recommendations
will become part of their disclosure
requirements in the near future.
Scope of reporting
The Working Group’s recommendations are for all reporting issuers, as
defined under Canadian securities law,
to publicly disclose certain categories
of payments made to national and sub-national authorities, including states,
provinces, counties, districts, munici-palities and state-owned enterprises. In
addition, companies will need to detail
the mining project to which these payments are associated.
To increase the complexity of this
issue, the Canadian government’s
announcement to develop mandatory