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@jacob-dodd frank act is what came about after the 2008 financial crash in america.idea is prevent banks from indulging in risky behavior by making it too expensive to do so.
@Jacob he Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requires issuers to examine their supply chain to determine if they manufacture or contract to manufacture products that contain conflict minerals that are necessary to the functionality or production of those products. If so, issuers must then investigate whether those conflict minerals originated in any of the ten countries covered by this law. Conflict minerals are defined as cassiterite, columbite-tantalite (coltan), gold, and wolframite, as well as their “3T” derivatives tin, tantalum and tungsten. Here's more: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2013/04/01/15-tips-for-complying-with-the-conflict-minerals-provision-of-the-dodd-frank-act/
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Can you tell us a little about what you see as the state of most supply chain organizatoins in terms of knowledge of conflict minerals? That May deadline is coming up fast.
First off, my job is that of a research analyst. I monitor best pracrices and trends impacting the topics of Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC) acorss industries. Conflict Minerals is one of the hottest topics of my research. My particular speciality is understanding the range of technology, professional services, and knowledge providers to help assist in aspects of GRC. So my job is to help organizations understand how they can have GRC related processes, like conflict minerals, that is efficient, effective, and agile to the needs of the distributed and dynamic business environment we operate in.
That being said – I am not a consultant. I am an analyst. I research and understand what is going on and point peopel in the right direction – including what consultants they could engage.
JimC, there is ambiguity on approach and depth to the supply chain. Of course, I cannot give legal advice and you need to understand my comments are generalizations and not on specific situations.
The end game is that organizations need some type of reasonable assurance that 3TG is not from or is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) or nine surrounding countries. If it is sourced from the DRC area then there are further steps that need to be taken.
Organizations that have to report to the SEC can trace the depths of their supply chain themselves by sending assessments to the suppliers of their suppliers of their suppliers to the source smelter or mine. Or they can send the assessments to just their first ring of suppliers and rely on their suppliers to do the same and have them attest to it. I see most organizations going with the later over the former.
Conflict minerals has been pretty prevalent which is what prompted Congress to take action in Dodd Frank section 1502. Some companies were addressing conflict minerals as part of their Social Accountability or Corporate Social Responsibility programs. Most were not.
This regulation does not forbid use of conflict minerals. It is to make reporting their use a requirement.
1 – Know who is on the team. The issues I have seen is when organizations pass this obligation around like a hot potato. Someone needs to step up and own it. This could be legal, corporate compliance, supply chain management, procurement, risk management, etc. However, despite who owns it – it needs a cross functional team across these departments.
2 – Figure out your approach. Are we going to just assess our first tier of suppliers? Or are we going to go down to 2nd or 3rd tiers? All the way to mine/smelter? Or do we rely, at one of these levels, on the attestations that they have done this work and we can rely on it.
Hi Guys…sorry I'm late. I have a question. As I understand it, this only applies to publicly traded companies in the US, correct? So what about all the private and foreign-based companies — do they gain some sort of unfair advantage? Are we likely to see a change in supply chain as a result of a shift in demand from public companies to private?
Have you heard any concerns about the use of conflict minerals from other parts of the world? I know the Dodd-Frank provision covers on the Congo conflict, but the Wash Post recently ran a story on tantalum mined in Colombia. It's a similar situation – the guerillas are using proceeds from the mines to fund their warfare.
3 – Understand how technology helps. We have been through this before. In the days of ealry Sarbanes Oxley compliance many organizations approached it with spreadsheets, documents and emails to find out this does not work. It is not scalable. Compliance teams were spending 80% or more of their time as document reconcilers and not managing compliance proactively. Things got missed, slipped through the cracks. It was a mess. Worse, documents and spreadsheets have no audit trail. You could not prove to regulators that a speciifc individual answered the assessment questions (no authentication) nor could you prove that those assessment answers were orginal and not manipulated to paint a rosier picture to get the organization out of trouble. Documents and spreadsheets fail to hold up as evidene of compliance.
Organizations need to look to technology that can stay on top of tasks, workflows, can do assessments, track changes, requires authentication, and can easily reconcile and report.
@Jim, no one is required to eliminate them, is my understanding.Only required to disclose it if they are using it. SO perhaps the questions is what happens if they don't disclose?
4 – Integrated into broader supplier risk/compliance strategies. Conflict minerals should be part of a broader social accounatibility and CSR program. Do not reinvent the wheel. Leverage conflict minerals to get in place a broader supplier risk and compliance management program.
@Michael, the technology piece is really intersting… i remember SoX and HIPAA and other requirements creating similar chaos and confusion and the software vendors really helped on that.
JimC: The question for corporations that relay on conflict minerals is going to be: What's the fallout from disclosing? or Not disclosing? The former may create a PR problem, the latter could result in a fine.
Yes, it applies to about 6,000 companies that report to the SEC. However, the downstream effect applies to a whole range of hundreds of thousands of companies. Very huge impact.
There is also growing requirements internationally like Canada's
Organizations can use conflict minerals. The requirement is reporting. Nothing, at this point, forbids there use. Congress wants to use reporting pressure on brands to reduce their use. Make it a brand and reputation issue.
As for penalities for not reporting – we will wait and see. Too early to tell.
GRC: So, if you're a publicly traded company down the chain, you are responsible for knowing whether any of the companies up the chain disclosed? That could prove rather difficult, eh?
What about private companies up or down the chain? Are they immune?
I understand that there are bills in Congress, and even at the State level (California) that takes a broader approach to Conflict Minerals beyond the DRC area.
If you are down the chain – someone should be sending you an assessment as well for disclosure. The whole idea is to force assessments down the chaing. Even to private companies. If they want to do business they have to answer the assessments and disclose and then on to their suppliers.
There certainly is a lot of work involved in all of this. And there is the possibility of dishonesty and concealment at different levels of the supply chain. The organization has to show it has done a reasonable assessment and reasonably believes if 3TG is used or not used in its products.
If you are down the chain – someone should be sending you an assessment as well for disclosure. The whole idea is to force assessments down the chaing. Even to private companies. If they want to do business they have to answer the assessments and disclose and then on to their suppliers.
Don't u feel this will just add too much paperwork today and slow down decision making considerably?
It makes sense in that this plan seems to strive for hte most impact without insurmountable costs. In talking with organizations and those who work with those organizations, it seems that most agree that this is an important topic and one that they want to address. I know there will always be some bad apples, but i hope the good outweighs that.
Right now we are unsure about enforcement. Everyone will be waiting for the first round of enforcement actions.
Consider HIPAA – it was passed in 1996. For a decade consultants and vendors were throwing around the HIPAA word but hospitals were reacting slowly. Until enforcement started happening in 2006/2007 – they they got the message.
Organizations are reacting now to conflict minerals, much better than HIPAA, but some are slow. The slow ones sit more on the sidelines wanting to see the first enforcement actions while hoping they are not the case study for enforcement.
I am not sure what you mean by GRC system? Are you talking technology? Process?
Complexity always grows opportunity for fraud and misdeeds. Things can be hidden and fly under the radar with complexity. That is why spreadsheets, documents, and emails do not work for GRC nor specifically for conflict minerals. They make things more complex with extra time and steps for consolidating and reporting and no audit trail.
@Michael, thanks, very helpful… the enforcement question will be interesting to see how it unfolds. i suspect that you are right that there 's probably a long leash for organizations who want to wait and see.
My libertarian side of me does not like the idea of conflict mineral regulation. But it is here. And yes, it could lead to negative views on the USA and our meddlesome regulations.
However, it is also a big concern of the OECD. And as I pointed out other countries are jumping on this as well.
The most confusion is in scope. What products/materials apply that we have to trace? And how far down the supply chain do our efforts go before we rely on the attestation of those further down they have done the work?
@GRC-If that's the case then when Manufacturing in Electronics is set to become a much-much more Expensive Proposition at exactly the wrong time(when Global Demand is falling and Pricing Pressures are rising).
Again, check out Michael's white paper and webinar for more indepth information. This is a complex subject–more than we can cover in a chat–although we gave it a good try!
One more thing – horizon. Acutally starting to happen. The integration of content, services, and technology. Where there is known sources of either conflict free or not suppliers and these can be used in transactions systems to monitor if we are paying firms on good lists or bad lists. There is the use of organizations that have a wide network and experience with suppliers, particularly in Africa to gain their expertise and knowledge. There is a lot fo interesting things we weill see mature over the next few years.
@GRC-Just like HIPAA at what stage do you feel Dodd-Frank will actually be implemented and enforced in Manufacturing?[Ten years later? 15 years later???]
tech4people, I think section 1502 of Dodd Frank will be enforced in 2014/2015. HIPAA was just an example of enforcement waking people up. Other regulations did not have a decade.
Tech4people, no, I am not saying they actually trace every mineral from each country. But they do deploy extensive knowledge and gather information on which suppliers are red flags to be concerned about.
Thank you. It is my pleasure. Another supply chain area I have a lot of experience with is social accountability in the context of supply chain code of conduct, international labor standards, and workplace safety. That could be an interesting topic.
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Hi hope to attend
Good morning everybody
whats this Dodd-Frank act?
How its going to affect the supply chain
@jacob-dodd frank act is what came about after the 2008 financial crash in america.idea is prevent banks from indulging in risky behavior by making it too expensive to do so.
guys-check this webinar out on Conflict minerals from the GRC website
http://www.grc2020.com/index.php/component/ohanah/2013-09-18-webinar-track-and-eliminate-conflict-minerals-meet-requirements-while-protecting-human-rights-1
Good stuff!!!
@Jacob he Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requires issuers to examine their supply chain to determine if they manufacture or contract to manufacture products that contain conflict minerals that are necessary to the functionality or production of those products. If so, issuers must then investigate whether those conflict minerals originated in any of the ten countries covered by this law. Conflict minerals are defined as cassiterite, columbite-tantalite (coltan), gold, and wolframite, as well as their “3T” derivatives tin, tantalum and tungsten. Here's more: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2013/04/01/15-tips-for-complying-with-the-conflict-minerals-provision-of-the-dodd-frank-act/
so the focus is green, enviromental safety.
We will be starting at 11 a.m. PST/2p.m. EST sharp. First, though, there are two housekeeping notes:
First, please make a copy of your post before hitting the “post” button – just in case. If the system “eats” one of your carefully crafted thoughts, please hit “Ctrl-Z” to recover it.
Second, if you have problems posting, we suggest trying a different browser. IE9 is a popular choice, but sometimes find Firefox, Chrome, or Safari work better.
This will be a fun, fast, and friendly conversation, so please do not hold back with your comments or questions. There are no dumb questions and we value everyone's point of view.
And always, please announce your arrival so we can give you a warm EBN welcome and offer you some virtual guacamole. 🙂
Hi, Hailey –
I'm just listening in. Thought I might get some good background for the feature I'm writing for Suzanne.
Hi Hailey
Let's start
Welcome Jim, Tam, and Lev. Glad you could make it. Pull up a chair and grab some chips. 🙂
And Tam, in addition to our guest, I suspect some other experts may be stopping by. Feel free to throw your questions at them!
Hello, this is Michael Rasmussen
I trust everyone is well. I am looking forward to our interactions on Conflict Minerals today.
Hi Michael, glad to have you with us! We have a good group already so i'm sure we're going to have some great questions.
Michael, does the Dodd-Frank Act specify how far down the supply chain a company has to look for conflict minerals?
And great handle. 🙂
Can you tell us a little about what you see as the state of most supply chain organizatoins in terms of knowledge of conflict minerals? That May deadline is coming up fast.
By way of introduction, also, let me mention that our guest wrote a recent whitepaper on the topic and will be engaged in a Webinar between Rasmussen and LockPath experts on 9/18 at 3pm CT. perhaps you'll want to tune in.
First off, my job is that of a research analyst. I monitor best pracrices and trends impacting the topics of Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC) acorss industries. Conflict Minerals is one of the hottest topics of my research. My particular speciality is understanding the range of technology, professional services, and knowledge providers to help assist in aspects of GRC. So my job is to help organizations understand how they can have GRC related processes, like conflict minerals, that is efficient, effective, and agile to the needs of the distributed and dynamic business environment we operate in.
That being said – I am not a consultant. I am an analyst. I research and understand what is going on and point peopel in the right direction – including what consultants they could engage.
That's very helpful, Michael. thanks.
Do you have any sense of how extensive the use of conflict minerals has been, and what types of progress companies have made in moving away from them?
As you go through your research, what are some of teh best practices that you've identified?
JimC, there is ambiguity on approach and depth to the supply chain. Of course, I cannot give legal advice and you need to understand my comments are generalizations and not on specific situations.
The end game is that organizations need some type of reasonable assurance that 3TG is not from or is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) or nine surrounding countries. If it is sourced from the DRC area then there are further steps that need to be taken.
Organizations that have to report to the SEC can trace the depths of their supply chain themselves by sending assessments to the suppliers of their suppliers of their suppliers to the source smelter or mine. Or they can send the assessments to just their first ring of suppliers and rely on their suppliers to do the same and have them attest to it. I see most organizations going with the later over the former.
@Michael, is that mainly, do you think because of the time consuming and expensive nature of the first approach?
Conflict minerals has been pretty prevalent which is what prompted Congress to take action in Dodd Frank section 1502. Some companies were addressing conflict minerals as part of their Social Accountability or Corporate Social Responsibility programs. Most were not.
This regulation does not forbid use of conflict minerals. It is to make reporting their use a requirement.
The need to disclose, though, especially for the public companies we are discussing here, does at least make the conversation happen, I would think.
Best practices:
1 – Know who is on the team. The issues I have seen is when organizations pass this obligation around like a hot potato. Someone needs to step up and own it. This could be legal, corporate compliance, supply chain management, procurement, risk management, etc. However, despite who owns it – it needs a cross functional team across these departments.
Is there a best case scenario in terms of who owns it? Or is it more of making sure someone is responsible.
2 – Figure out your approach. Are we going to just assess our first tier of suppliers? Or are we going to go down to 2nd or 3rd tiers? All the way to mine/smelter? Or do we rely, at one of these levels, on the attestations that they have done this work and we can rely on it.
Hi Guys…sorry I'm late. I have a question. As I understand it, this only applies to publicly traded companies in the US, correct? So what about all the private and foreign-based companies — do they gain some sort of unfair advantage? Are we likely to see a change in supply chain as a result of a shift in demand from public companies to private?
(And Hailey: I have another question — where's the guacamole?)
Hi Tom, Pull up a chair! Glad you could make it.
the Guac was being passed around earlier along with teh organic corn chips. Take a look on the back table.
@Tom-You brought the guacamole?
What happens to a company that fails to eliminate conflict minerals from its supply chain?
Have you heard any concerns about the use of conflict minerals from other parts of the world? I know the Dodd-Frank provision covers on the Congo conflict, but the Wash Post recently ran a story on tantalum mined in Colombia. It's a similar situation – the guerillas are using proceeds from the mines to fund their warfare.
3 – Understand how technology helps. We have been through this before. In the days of ealry Sarbanes Oxley compliance many organizations approached it with spreadsheets, documents and emails to find out this does not work. It is not scalable. Compliance teams were spending 80% or more of their time as document reconcilers and not managing compliance proactively. Things got missed, slipped through the cracks. It was a mess. Worse, documents and spreadsheets have no audit trail. You could not prove to regulators that a speciifc individual answered the assessment questions (no authentication) nor could you prove that those assessment answers were orginal and not manipulated to paint a rosier picture to get the organization out of trouble. Documents and spreadsheets fail to hold up as evidene of compliance.
Organizations need to look to technology that can stay on top of tasks, workflows, can do assessments, track changes, requires authentication, and can easily reconcile and report.
Tech4People. No, I brought the Margaritas and my solar-powered blender. I counted on the guac being here.
@Jim, no one is required to eliminate them, is my understanding.Only required to disclose it if they are using it. SO perhaps the questions is what happens if they don't disclose?
4 – Integrated into broader supplier risk/compliance strategies. Conflict minerals should be part of a broader social accounatibility and CSR program. Do not reinvent the wheel. Leverage conflict minerals to get in place a broader supplier risk and compliance management program.
I brought the guacamole, made from California's finest offering, it's on the back table…Please help yourself!
Who owns it questions . . .
Started answering this before – most important thing is to find an owner but ensure a cross-department collaborative team.
@Michael, the technology piece is really intersting… i remember SoX and HIPAA and other requirements creating similar chaos and confusion and the software vendors really helped on that.
JimC: The question for corporations that relay on conflict minerals is going to be: What's the fallout from disclosing? or Not disclosing? The former may create a PR problem, the latter could result in a fine.
Tom,
Your question on who it applies to . . .
Yes, it applies to about 6,000 companies that report to the SEC. However, the downstream effect applies to a whole range of hundreds of thousands of companies. Very huge impact.
There is also growing requirements internationally like Canada's
Jim,
You question on failure to eliminate . . .
Organizations can use conflict minerals. The requirement is reporting. Nothing, at this point, forbids there use. Congress wants to use reporting pressure on brands to reduce their use. Make it a brand and reputation issue.
As for penalities for not reporting – we will wait and see. Too early to tell.
GRC: So, if you're a publicly traded company down the chain, you are responsible for knowing whether any of the companies up the chain disclosed? That could prove rather difficult, eh?
What about private companies up or down the chain? Are they immune?
Tam,
I understand that there are bills in Congress, and even at the State level (California) that takes a broader approach to Conflict Minerals beyond the DRC area.
Tom,
If you are down the chain – someone should be sending you an assessment as well for disclosure. The whole idea is to force assessments down the chaing. Even to private companies. If they want to do business they have to answer the assessments and disclose and then on to their suppliers.
It makes sense as at least a starting point. How will this be enforced?
There certainly is a lot of work involved in all of this. And there is the possibility of dishonesty and concealment at different levels of the supply chain. The organization has to show it has done a reasonable assessment and reasonably believes if 3TG is used or not used in its products.
@GRC-Regarding your comment here-
If you are down the chain – someone should be sending you an assessment as well for disclosure. The whole idea is to force assessments down the chaing. Even to private companies. If they want to do business they have to answer the assessments and disclose and then on to their suppliers.
Don't u feel this will just add too much paperwork today and slow down decision making considerably?
@GRC-Don't u feel(as you pointed out) The potential for Fraud is much-much higher the more complex this GRC system gets?
It makes sense in that this plan seems to strive for hte most impact without insurmountable costs. In talking with organizations and those who work with those organizations, it seems that most agree that this is an important topic and one that they want to address. I know there will always be some bad apples, but i hope the good outweighs that.
Hailey,
Right now we are unsure about enforcement. Everyone will be waiting for the first round of enforcement actions.
Consider HIPAA – it was passed in 1996. For a decade consultants and vendors were throwing around the HIPAA word but hospitals were reacting slowly. Until enforcement started happening in 2006/2007 – they they got the message.
Organizations are reacting now to conflict minerals, much better than HIPAA, but some are slow. The slow ones sit more on the sidelines wanting to see the first enforcement actions while hoping they are not the case study for enforcement.
@Hailey-The costs will most definitely be insurmountable here!
@GRC-In a lot of ways does'nt it give the usual impression of America-Super-meddlesome behavior?
tech4people,
I am not sure what you mean by GRC system? Are you talking technology? Process?
Complexity always grows opportunity for fraud and misdeeds. Things can be hidden and fly under the radar with complexity. That is why spreadsheets, documents, and emails do not work for GRC nor specifically for conflict minerals. They make things more complex with extra time and steps for consolidating and reporting and no audit trail.
@Michael, thanks, very helpful… the enforcement question will be interesting to see how it unfolds. i suspect that you are right that there 's probably a long leash for organizations who want to wait and see.
Do you have a sense of where the most confusion or concern lies in terms of processes?
tech4people,
My libertarian side of me does not like the idea of conflict mineral regulation. But it is here. And yes, it could lead to negative views on the USA and our meddlesome regulations.
However, it is also a big concern of the OECD. And as I pointed out other countries are jumping on this as well.
http://www.mapi.net/research/publications/conflict-minerals-how-courts-congress-canada-and-eu-are-responding
Hailey,
The most confusion is in scope. What products/materials apply that we have to trace? And how far down the supply chain do our efforts go before we rely on the attestation of those further down they have done the work?
@GRC-Correct I meant the entire system is haven for Fraud.
@GRC-If that's the case then when Manufacturing in Electronics is set to become a much-much more Expensive Proposition at exactly the wrong time(when Global Demand is falling and Pricing Pressures are rising).
Not good news.
OK everyone we've hit 11:45… any last questions for our guest?
tech4people, not arguing against you
Thank you for being with us, Michael. I appreciate your willingness to come and field our questions. You gave us a lot to think about!
Again, check out Michael's white paper and webinar for more indepth information. This is a complex subject–more than we can cover in a chat–although we gave it a good try!
One more thing – horizon. Acutally starting to happen. The integration of content, services, and technology. Where there is known sources of either conflict free or not suppliers and these can be used in transactions systems to monitor if we are paying firms on good lists or bad lists. There is the use of organizations that have a wide network and experience with suppliers, particularly in Africa to gain their expertise and knowledge. There is a lot fo interesting things we weill see mature over the next few years.
@GRC-Just like HIPAA at what stage do you feel Dodd-Frank will actually be implemented and enforced in Manufacturing?[Ten years later? 15 years later???]
Sounds like there's going to be a lot of peer pressure going on, and perhaps that's a good thing.
@GRC-So you mean to say they actually trace each and every Mineral from each country? I find it hard to believe.
tech4people, I think section 1502 of Dodd Frank will be enforced in 2014/2015. HIPAA was just an example of enforcement waking people up. Other regulations did not have a decade.
Tech4people, no, I am not saying they actually trace every mineral from each country. But they do deploy extensive knowledge and gather information on which suppliers are red flags to be concerned about.
Thank you again for being our guest! I hope you'll join us again.
Thank you. It is my pleasure. Another supply chain area I have a lot of experience with is social accountability in the context of supply chain code of conduct, international labor standards, and workplace safety. That could be an interesting topic.
That's a great topic! I”ll be sure to give you a call.
@GRC-Thanks for the great posts! Appreciate it!
Sorry, I missed the chat section
Hailey, thanks for the clarification and link
It shows that its a great chat show
Thanks everybody
thanks onceagain
It seems that the linkl is wrong
Its the previous one and not the one mentioned for 30/09
Hailey, please update the chat mail with a new link
Hope to attend