PetroChina, Sinopec et al required to reveal payments made to overseas governments

EU anti-corruption laws will hit Chinese companies overseas - chinadialogue | The European Union's Accounting and Transparency Directives, voted into law in June, obliges EU-listed and large EU-headquartered oil, gas, mining and logging firms to publish details of all financial payments of €100,000 and above, made to governments around the world including taxes, royalties and license fees, on a project-by-project basis. Taken together with a similar law introduced in the US in July 2010, these mandatory reporting standards cover around 70% of the value of the global listed extractive industries, ushering in a new era of transparency in the global extractives sector. This new wave of new transparency obligations looks set to expand into other jurisdictions. For example, Canada – home to over 2,000 extractive companies operating in more than 100 countries worldwide – has publicly committed to enacting similar requirements. These laws are significant for several major Chinese companies, such as PetroChina, Sinopec and Aluminium Corporation of China, who will now be required to comply as a condition of their listing on European and US stock exchanges. In addition, European and US-listed companies operating domestically in China will be obliged to publish what they pay to the Chinese government.