US scraps curb on corporate corruption

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed into law a measure scrapping anticorruption regulations long opposed by the oil industry.

Part of a blitz of recent White House manoeuvres against regulation and red tape, the move undoes the requirement for international oil, gas and mining companies to disclose payments to foreign governments.

Created by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the rule, which had not yet taken effect, targeted an area long plagued by bribery and corruption. It was called for in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation.

Industry advocates had been trying to overturn the payments rule, saying it put US-traded companies at a disadvantage, since they must reveal information other companies may not have to.

However, such rules are in effect in Canada, the EU and Norway.

Trump has touted his closeness to the oil industry, naming prominent oil industry figures to key positions, reviving pipeline projects rejected by the prior administration and signalling a marked shift away from climatesensitive policies.

Jack Gerard, head of the American Petroleum Institute, an industry lobbying group, hailed the move as a “welcome step forward”. He said the rule could have achieved its goal without placing an undue burden on US companies.

Transparency campaigners condemned the action, but said the fight was far from over. “In the short term, we lost a tool that can help track the billions of dollars lost to corruption and tax evasion in the developing world,” said Eric LeCompte, executive director of the religious development organisation Jubilee.

Jana Morgan, director of Publish What You Pay US, said the Dodd-Frank law required the SEC to impose such a rule.

Earlier this month, six Republican senators wrote to the SEC saying that although they planned to vote to scrap the rule, they supported its underlying purpose and hoped to see a viable newer version. —