In 2010, as mandated by the then newly enacted Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission created a new rule requiring that all companies under SEC regulation report whether their products contain minerals mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) or certain adjoining countries. The measure was included in Dodd-Frank in a misguided attempt to help mitigate the terrible violence that has wracked much of Africa in recent decades, an ongoing war fueled, many believe, by the economic demand for the region’s rich resources. But as always results from government intervention in markets, the unintended consequences have been dire—not only for thousands of companies but for the very people the rule was intended to help.
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