The Securities and Exchange Commission (Washington DC October 31, 2018) announced that it has voted to adopt amendments to modernize the property disclosure requirements for mining registrants, and related guidance, under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The amendments will provide investors with a more comprehensive understanding of a registrant’s mining properties, which should help them make more informed investment decisions. The amendments also will more closely align the Commission’s disclosure requirements and policies for mining properties with current industry and global regulatory practices and standards.
Under the final rules, a registrant with material mining operations must disclose specified information in its Securities Act and Exchange Act filings concerning its mineral resources, in addition to its mineral reserves. Current Commission rules and guidance permit the disclosure of non-reserve estimates only in limited circumstances. Requiring the disclosure of mineral resources in addition to mineral reserves will provide investors with important information concerning the registrant’s operations and prospects.
The final rules include several other requirements designed to further the protection and understanding of investors. The final rules also reflect several changes to the rules proposed in June 2016 in response to commenters. These changes would more closely align the Commission’s mining property disclosure requirements with the CRIRSCO standards and thereby help decrease, relative to the proposed rules, the compliance burden and costs for the many registrants that are subject to one or more of the CRIRSCO-based codes, while preserving important investor protections.
The final rules provide a two-year transition period so that a registrant will not be required to begin to comply with the new rules until its first fiscal year beginning on or after Jan 1, 2021.
Read more here; Download SEC33 (PDF, 1.5MB)