With the first reporting requirements for the Securities and Exchange Commission’s conflict minerals rule due on May 31, many public companies are still in the early stages of compliance and risk falling behind, according to a new survey by audit firm PwC. It found that only four percent of companies have completed a draft of their filings, and 90 percent either have only developed initial drafts, or none at all, with significant work still needed ahead of a fast-approaching deadline.
According to the survey of 700 respondents across 15 industries, businesses continue to find compliance with the rule to be challenging at nearly every step: scoping, surveying suppliers, performing due diligence, and drafting filings. As a result, two-thirds of respondents said they will need one or two two full-time employees dedicated to their conflict minerals compliance efforts; 21 percent said they needed to bolster staff by as many as five employees. Less than half of respondents had sent a “reasonable country of origin inquiry” to more than three-quarters of their in-scope suppliers; only 47 percent had received fully-completed responses from more than half of the suppliers queried.
