European companies in the oil, gas, mining, and logging industries will soon be required to reveal more about the payments they make to governments for the rights to extract resources in the countries in which they operate, significantly expanding the scope of similar efforts already underway in the United States.
Last month the European Union reached a preliminary agreement that would require companies in extraction businesses to disclose in their annual reports payments totaling more than €100,000 ($131,000) they have made to governments on a country-by-country and project-by-project basis.
