On August 18, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reaffirmed its 2014 ruling that struck down the requirement that public companies must disclose to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and on their website, whether any of their products have not been found to be “DRC conflict free.” With one judge dissenting, the three-judge panel also reaffirmed the court’s decision to uphold the remainder of the so-called conflict minerals statute and rule, which are included in Section 13(p)(1) of the Exchange Act and Rule 13p-1 promulgated thereunder (together, the “Conflict Minerals Rule”).

Background -

In 2014, the court in National Association of Manufacturers v. SEC struck down the Conflict Minerals Rule’s “DRC conflict free” disclosure requirement on First Amendment grounds. Following that decision, the court reached a decision in American Meat Institute v. U.S. Department of Agriculture that expanded the application of a different, less demanding standard of review used in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling known as Zauderer. The Zauderer standard calls for a lower threshold for what the government must prove in order to show that its law does not violate First Amendment rights.