The Light Comes On and The Roaches Scramble: Companies Forced to Disclose Ties to Iran
As of February 6th of this year, all companies trading on US stock exchanges must file a report with the SEC detailing their business ties to Iran.
The results are flowing in and are nothing less than shocking.
NO ONE SHOULD BE DOING BUSINESS WITH THESE COMPANIES.
Among the offenders, some of whom have never previously been listed in any database tying them to Iran (indicating that they concealed their relations with Iran) are:
ExxonMobil
J.P. Morgan Chase
PepsiCo
CitiGroup
BP
Pfizer
Hyatt Hotels
JetBlue Airways
Neiman Marcus
Thomson Reuters
From the SEC web site:
Question: Section 219(b) of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012, signed into law on August 10, 2012, specifies that new Section 13(r) of the Exchange Act “shall take effect with respect to reports required to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission after the date that is 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act,” which would be February 6, 2013. If an issuer’s periodic report is required to be filed on a date after February 6, 2013 — such as, for example, the 2012 Form 10-K for calendar year filers — is the issuer required to disclose Iran-related business activities pursuant to Section 13(r) if it files the periodic report on or before February 6, 2013?
Answer: Yes. We interpret “reports required to be filed” to include any periodic report with a due date after February 6, 2013, regardless of when the report is actually filed.
Predictably, the lawyers are already whining about having to comply, complaining that Congress isn’t working closely enough with the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the SEC in coming up with this legislation. From the Wall Street Journal:
“There are requirements in the laws for SEC disclosures, but the unfortunate thing is Congress doesn’t appear to have consulted with [the Office of Foreign Assets Control] or the SEC before passing this legislation,” said Judith Lee, chairwoman of law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher’s international trade and regulation compliance practice group.
“Not only are the companies trying to figure out what is required, the agencies are too…For somebody like me who has worked in the sanctions area for many years, this is not the best way to go about passing legislation.”
There is no need to buy into this malarkey. What they are REALLY upset about is the fact that companies are having to admit the truth that they have been doing business in and with the world’s foremost sponsor of Jihadist terrorism. This is especially rich coming from Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, a law firm extensively involved in facilitating Shariah-Compliant Finance.
Perhaps the most serious disclosure is the fact that the news agency Thomson Reuters has done business directly with the Iranian government, which pretty much means you can’t trust a thing Reuters publishes about the Iranian threat.
More at the Free Beacon:
https://freebeacon.com/putting-iran-on-notice-2/
