What Are Conflict Minerals? U.S. and EU Compliance Rules

Conflict minerals are tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold when they are extracted or traded in ways that fund armed groups and fuel human rights abuses, most prominently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its neighbors. U.S. law defines these four metals as “conflict minerals” under Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act, and both U.S. and EU regulations now require companies to trace where their supply comes from and report what they find.¹ Because the four metals appear in everything from smartphones to jet engines, the rules reach far beyond mining and into the supply chains of electronics firms, manufacturers, and jewelers worldwide.

The Four Metals and Where They Show Up

The industry shorthand for the regulated set is “3TG.” The metals come from the ores cassiterite (tin), columbite-tantalite (tantalum), and wolframite (tungsten), plus gold in its native form.¹ Each does work that is hard to replace:

Tin is used in solder for circuit boards, food-can coatings, and alloys.
Tantalum goes into capacitors in mobile phones, laptops, medical devices, and defense systems.
Tungsten, valued for its hardness, appears in cutting tools, drill bits, and armor-piercing ammunition.
Gold turns up in jewelry, electronics connectors, dental work, and aerospace shielding.

A single smartphone can contain all four, each arriving through a different chain of intermediaries stretching across continents. That is what makes the supply-chain problem hard: the finished product sits many hands away from the mine.

Where They Come From and Why It Matters

The Democratic Republic of the Congo sits at the center of the issue. The DRC holds some of the world’s richest deposits of all four 3TG metals, and U.S. reporting rules extend to nine adjoining countries: Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. Together these ten are the “Covered Countries” in SEC filings.²

Much of the extraction happens through artisanal mining, with individuals and small groups digging by hand in remote areas with little oversight. From the mine, minerals pass through local traders, regional consolidators, and eventually smelters or refiners before reaching manufacturers. Each handoff makes origin harder to prove. Armed groups exploit that opacity by taxing or controlling mining sites and smuggling ore across borders to launder its origin.

The revenue funds violence. Documented consequences in mining regions include forced labor, child labor, sexual violence used as a weapon of control, and displacement of entire communities, alongside water contamination and deforestation. Cutting off the financial pipeline between mineral buyers and armed groups is the stated purpose of both the U.S. and EU regulations.

What U.S. Law Requires

Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act added subsection (p) to the Securities Exchange Act, requiring companies that file reports with the SEC to disclose annually whether conflict minerals necessary to their products originated in the DRC or an adjoining country.¹ The rule applies to any issuer filing under Exchange Act Sections 13(a) or 15(d), which effectively means all publicly traded U.S. companies, regardless of size.³ Private companies are not covered. Where a company ends up in the compliance process depends on what its initial inquiry turns up.

The Reasonable Country of Origin Inquiry

Every covered company whose products contain 3TG must first conduct a reasonable country of origin inquiry, or RCOI. The inquiry has to be performed in good faith and designed to determine whether the minerals came from a Covered Country or from recycled or scrap sources.³ If the RCOI shows the minerals did not come from a Covered Country, or came from recycled or scrap material, the company reports that finding on Form SD and briefly describes the inquiry. No further due diligence is required.⁴ If the company knows or has reason to believe its minerals may have come from the Covered Countries and are not recycled or scrap, it moves to full due diligence.

Due Diligence, the Conflict Minerals Report, and Form SD

Companies that trigger due diligence must investigate the source and chain of custody of their conflict minerals, using the OECD Due Diligence Guidance as the framework.⁴ They then prepare a Conflict Minerals Report describing the measures taken, the products affected, the facilities that processed the minerals, and what they learned about origin. The report is filed as an exhibit to Form SD.⁵ Form SD is due annually by May 31 for the preceding calendar year, regardless of the company’s fiscal year, and must also be posted on the company’s public website.

Independent Audit

If a company affirmatively determines that its products are “DRC conflict free,” meaning the minerals may have come from a Covered Country but did not finance or benefit armed groups, it must obtain an independent private sector audit of its Conflict Minerals Report, certify that audit, and identify the auditor.⁵ Products classified as “DRC conflict undeterminable,” where the company could not conclusively trace origins, do not require the independent audit.

Recycled and Scrap Sources

Minerals from recycled or scrap material get favorable treatment. If the RCOI reasonably concludes the minerals came from recycled or scrap sources, they are automatically considered “DRC conflict free,” and no further due diligence or Conflict Minerals Report is required for those minerals.³ The company still discloses the RCOI determination on Form SD and on its website.

What the NAM Ruling Changed

The rule has not survived court challenge fully intact. In National Association of Manufacturers v. SEC, a federal court held that requiring companies to describe their products as “have not been found to be DRC conflict free” on SEC filings and company websites violated the First Amendment’s protections against compelled speech. The court struck that specific labeling requirement while leaving the rest of the rule in place.⁶

In practice, companies still must run the RCOI, perform due diligence when it triggers, and file Form SD on schedule. What they no longer have to do is apply the specific “not DRC conflict free” label to their products. The core disclosure and due diligence machinery of Section 1502 remains operational.

What EU Law Requires

The European Union’s Conflict Minerals Regulation, Regulation 2017/821, took full effect on January 1, 2021 and creates due diligence obligations for EU importers of tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold. The EU rule differs from the U.S. one in two important ways. It is global in scope, covering minerals from any conflict-affected or high-risk area worldwide rather than a defined list of countries. And it distinguishes between upstream and downstream companies. Upstream actors, including miners, raw material traders, smelters, and refiners, face mandatory due diligence when importing covered minerals into the EU. Downstream companies importing metal-stage products also face mandatory rules. Companies further down the chain, working with finished metals or components, are not directly obligated but are encouraged to be transparent about their sourcing.⁷ The regulation also sets volume thresholds per mineral, below which importers are exempt.

The OECD Framework and How Compliance Actually Happens

Both regimes point at the same benchmark: the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas. Adopted in 2011 and technically non-binding, it functions as the international standard because regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have written it into their requirements.⁸ The framework runs in five steps:

Establish strong internal management systems for supply-chain oversight.
Identify and assess risks within the supply chain.
Design and implement a strategy to respond to identified risks.
Carry out an independent third-party audit of supply-chain due diligence.
Report annually on due diligence findings and actions taken.

The OECD Guidance covers all minerals, not just 3TG, which gives it broader reach than either the U.S. or EU regulation alone.⁹

Two industry tools carry most of the day-to-day compliance load. The Conflict Minerals Reporting Template, or CMRT, is a free, standardized form developed by the Responsible Minerals Initiative that companies use to collect and pass supply-chain information about mineral origins and the smelters or refiners in their chain of custody.¹⁰ A manufacturer sends the CMRT to its suppliers, who fill in what they know and pass it further up the chain. If you supply components to a publicly traded company, you will almost certainly receive one.

The Responsible Minerals Assurance Process, or RMAP, focuses on the chokepoint: the smelter or refiner. Because thousands of mines feed into a relatively small number of smelters, auditing at that stage is far more efficient than trying to trace individual mines. RMAP uses independent third-party assessments to check whether a smelter’s sourcing practices conform to OECD Guidance and to the requirements of U.S. and EU regulations.¹¹ Smelters that pass are listed as “RMAP conformant,” and downstream companies point to that conformance as evidence of their own due diligence. The assessment evaluates management systems and sourcing processes; it does not validate individual batches of material.

What May Be Coming Next

The 3TG framework is starting to look narrow. Cobalt and mica, both mined under conditions that mirror the worst of the 3TG supply chains, are drawing regulatory and industry attention. Neither is classified as a conflict mineral under U.S. law or under the current EU conflict minerals regulation, but pressure to cover them is building from more than one direction.

The EU’s Battery Regulation, Regulation 2023/1542, introduces due diligence obligations covering cobalt, natural graphite, lithium, and nickel used in battery manufacturing. The original application date was August 2025, and a legislative proposal would push it to August 2027.¹² On the industry side, the Responsible Minerals Initiative has extended its reporting tools beyond 3TG to cover cobalt and mica and released a Global Responsible Sourcing Due Diligence Standard applicable to all minerals.¹³ Companies sourcing battery materials or cobalt-bearing electronics should treat the EU Battery Regulation as the next compliance horizon, even while its effective date remains in flux.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 78m – Periodical and Other Reports
2
Securities and Exchange Commission. Final Rule: Conflict Minerals
3
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Conflict Minerals Disclosure
4
U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. Form SD
5
U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. Conflict Minerals Disclosure: A Compliance Guide for Small Entities
6
SEC.gov. Joint Statement on the Conflict Minerals Decision
7
European Commission. Conflict Minerals Regulation: The Regulation Explained
8
OECD. Responsible Mineral Supply Chains
9
Responsible Minerals Initiative. To Whom Does the SEC Final Rule or OECD Due Diligence Guidance Apply?
10
Responsible Minerals Initiative. Conflict Minerals Reporting Template
11
Responsible Minerals Initiative. Responsible Minerals Assurance Process
12
European Commission. Proposal for a Regulation Amending Regulation (EU) 2023/1542
13
Responsible Business Alliance. Responsible Minerals Initiative Releases New Global Standard for All-Minerals Due Diligence