Court bars Oxfam from making oral arguments in SEC oil payments case

A federal appeals court won’t let Oxfam America take part in upcoming oral arguments over Securities and Exchange Commission rules that force oil and mining companies to disclose payments to foreign governments.

The court's March 7 order is a victory for oil industry and business groups, which are suing the SEC to overturn the rules and had urged the court not to give Oxfam time to defend the regulation at the March 22 argument.

Instead, the time will equally divided between a lawyer for the SEC and Eugene Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who is representing the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other groups.

Oxfam, which has formally intervened in the case on the SEC’s side, had asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to make separate arguments, claiming that they have “presented a number of arguments here that are distinct from those of the SEC.”

Scalia had urged the court not to allow Oxfam time, noting in a motion that the SEC could have shared some if its time with Oxfam, but chose not to. In his motion earlier in March, Scalia said the intent of court rules is to provide each side equal time.

“It would be disproportionate, unfair to Petitioners, and contrary to Rule 34(d) if Oxfam and the Commission together had five more minutes to argue against the petition than Petitioners have to argue for it,” Scalia wrote in a March 5 motion.

The rule will force SEC-listed oil, natural-gas and mining companies to reveal payments to governments related to projects in their countries, such as money for production licenses, taxes, royalties and other aspects of energy and mineral projects.

It’s aimed at increasing transparency to help undo the “resource curse,” in which some impoverished countries in Africa and elsewhere are plagued by high levels of corruption and conflict alongside their energy and mineral wealth.

Groups seeking to overturn the rule say it will impose very costly burdens on energy producers and put SEC-listed oil companies at a disadvantage overseas against state-owned Russian and Chinese competitors.