In Conflict Minerals, Ethical Investors Gain Ability to Rank Companies

Aug 5, 2015 | Kristin Lin and Eily Chasan
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Coming up with a “conflict-free” determination to comply with the SEC’s rule can be costly for companies—and the value of the information is up for interpretation.

Section 1502 of Dodd Frank requires companies to comb through their supply chains to identify whether their products contain any tantalum, tin, tungsten, or gold sourced from mines that armed militias control.

Some don’t think that many shareholders will care. “There are a small percentage of investors interested in having this information. But you have to imagine that the overwhelming majority are not getting anything out of the rule,” said Adam Pritchard, a corporate law professor at the University of Michigan’s law school.