Securities and Exchange Commission September 12, 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Securities and Exchange Commission Investor Advisory Committee, established pursuant to Section 911 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, is providing notice that it will hold a public meeting on Friday, September 28, 2012, in Multi-Purpose Room LL-006 at the Commission's headquarters, 100 F Street NE., Washington, DC 20549. The meeting will begin at 10:00 a.m. (EDT) and end at 4:00 p.m. and will be open to the public, except during portions of the meeting reserved for meetings of the Committee's subcommittees. The meeting will be webcast on the Commission's Web site at www.sec.gov. Persons needing special accommodations to take part because of a disability should notify the contact person listed below. The public is invited to submit written statements to the Committee. The agenda for the meeting includes: introductory remarks from Commissioners; introductory remarks from Committee officers; and reports from the four Investor Advisory Committee subcommittees (the Investor as Owner subcommittee, the Investor as Purchaser subcommittee, the Investor Education subcommittee, and the Market Structure subcommittee).

We are adopting a new form and rule pursuant to Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act relating to the use of conflict minerals. Section 1502 added Section 13(p) to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which requires the Commission to promulgate rules requiring issuers with conflict minerals that are necessary to the functionality or production of a product manufactured by such person to disclose annually whether any of those minerals originated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or an adjoining country. If an issuer's conflict minerals originated in those countries, Section 13(p) requires the issuer to submit a report to the Commission that includes a description of the measures it took to exercise due diligence on the conflict minerals' source and chain of custody. The measures taken to exercise due diligence must include an independent private sector audit of the report that is conducted in accordance with standards established by the Comptroller General of the United States. Section 13(p) also requires the issuer submitting the report to identify the auditor and to certify the audit. In addition, Section 13(p) requires the report to include a description of the products manufactured or contracted to be manufactured that are not ``DRC conflict free,'' the facilities used to process the conflict minerals, the country of origin of the conflict minerals, and the efforts to determine the mine or location of origin. Section 13(p) requires the information disclosed by the issuer to be available to the public on its Internet Web site.