The Reports on Payments to Government Regulations 2014 were introduced into UK law in December 2014.  Under the Regulations, an entity will be required to prepare and deliver a report to Companies House if it is a UK registered company or partnership and meets the test to be either a large undertaking or a public interest entity (PIE), and is engaged in mining, oil and gas or primary forestry logging activities.  Such companies will be required to report publicly payments made to governments in the countries where they undertake extractive and logging operations.  The amended EU Transparency Directive extended the requirements to include entities with securities traded on an EU regulated market (both debt and equity), therefore including non-EU incorporated companies with securities admitted to trading on an EU regulated market.  This requirement was implemented by the Financial Conduct Authority in January 2015.

The guidance seeks to answer the following questions:

• Which entities are under an obligation to prepare and deliver a report?
• Does every entity have to prepare a report or can a consolidated report be prepared for a group?
• Are any entities exempted from preparing reports under the UK Regulations?
• What are the reporting requirements for entities that are subject to equivalent disclosure regimes?
• Do the reports only cover payments made by the entities that have to prepare reports or do the reports cover payments made by other group entities?
• Which business activities are within the scope of the UK Regulations?
• Which types of payment have to be included in the report?
•  Who has the obligation to include payment information in a report in situations where a payment is made on behalf of multiple parties?
• Which government entities that receive payments have to be covered in the reports?
• How should payments be attributed to projects?
• When and how should reports be delivered? 

The guidance is available on the IOGP website.