Conflict Minerals Webinar Attendees Speak Out: What does RCOI Stand for and Why Should I Care?
Read about RCOI and Due Diligence.
Hundreds of Global Brand Officers attended today’s Source Intelligence webinar: Industry Veterans Speak Out on the Changing Requirements of Due Diligence. We received countless questions, which we will release later this week, however one question seemed to be on the viewers minds…
What does RCOI stand for?
RCOI is the Reasonable Country of Origin Inquiry.
Before beginning RCOI, you must filter your products to identify those that may contain gold, tin, tantalum and tungsten (3TG). Based on this focused list, you then initiate a Reasonable Country of Origin Inquiry (RCOI). Depending on the number of products requiring investigation and the complexity of the associated supply chains, a RCOI could involve hundreds or even thousands of telephone and email inquiries, data files and other supporting documents.
Why is RCOI important?
The Final Rule does not explicitly state which actions and outcomes are needed to satisfy the RCOI requirement, arguing that such a determination depends on each SEC issuer’s particular facts and circumstances. Per the SEC, the RCOI process can differ depending on an issuer’s size, products, relationships with suppliers, or other factors and will evolve over time depending on available infrastructure. However, per the general standards provided in the Final Rule, the RCOI must be reasonably designed to determine whether the issuer’s conflict minerals did originate in the Covered Countries, or did come from recycled or scrap sources, and it must be performed in good faith.
For more information and detail on RCOI, please click this link to download the white paper: RCOI: Essential Elements for Tracing Conflict Minerals in Your Supply Chain.
