No Surprise Here: SEC And Amnesty File Petitions For En Banc Rehearing In The Conflict Minerals Case
To no one’s surprise, on Friday, the SEC and Amnesty International filed petitions for en banc rehearing in the conflict minerals case, National Association of Manufacturers, Inc. v. SEC. That case, decided two-to-one in August of this year by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit, reaffirmed that Court’s initial judgment that the requirement in the conflict minerals rule to disclose whether companies’ products were “not found to be DRC conflict free” amounted to “compelled speech” in violation of companies’ First Amendment rights. The filing of the petitions does not, by itself, have any impact on the current state of play regarding conflict minerals compliance.