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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.