The holy grail (at least so far) of conflict minerals precedents was filed with the SEC albeit perhaps too late for many issuers to wholesale change course.  But still excellent for a final form check.  Intel’s Form SD can be found here and its conflict minerals report can be found here.

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly Intel makes the “DRC Conflict Undeterminable” unconstitutional confession. As I said before, only a First Amendment lawyer could find real downside here. I suspect Intel wanted the stakeholder goodwill for describing some products as DRC Conflict Free and it may have been untoward not to point out some were not.  And there is the clear communications aspect, not talking about a bunch of stuff without a conclusion.  Which of course was NAM’s point.

Why did Intel file early?  Maybe they couldn’t bear to read anymore butchered filings like most of those that preceded it and wanted to show the world someone could do it right. A fifth filing was also been made on May 22.

The word is the SEC has been giving specific advice to those that call, as they should, but doesn’t want to do any more CDIs. The SEC supposedly wants issuers to share the SEC advice informally.  I guess it is regulation by hearsay, which will probably show up in the next NAM brief.  In any event, both Broc Romanek’s TheCorporateCounsel.net and The Elm Consulting Group will be acting as information brokers, so keep your eyes on those sites.

Speaking of regulation by hearsay, reputable sources indicate the SEC has stated that filers that are classified as “undeterminable” and don’t use the specific wording “DRC Conflict Undeterminable” in the text of the conflicts minerals report, need not make the disclosure concerning improvements to due diligence measures is the 2013 filing.  I am not sure of the rationale behind this position however.