The American Dodd-Frank Act on the reform of US financial market law by improving responsibility and transparency was signed in July 2010 by President Obama. Section 1502 of the Act specifically refers to the conflict commodities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its neighboring countries and names tungstenite, cassiterite, columbium ( coltan), gold and the metals derived therefrom, tantalum, tin and tungsten.
According to this, companies that process these substances and are listed on the US stock exchange will be required to prove annually whether armed rebel groups are supported by the degradation of these raw materials if they are decisive for the production or function of the products of this companies.
The companies concerned are obliged to disclose whether their products are using conflicting minerals for their purposes and, if so, whether they originate from the DRC or neighboring countries.
We, Garz & Fricke GmbH have no legal obligation to meet the requirements for conflict minerals of section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act. However, we are aware of our social responsibility with regard to the environment, safety, health and human rights.
We will knowingly not use conflict minerals from non-certified melts from the conflict region in our products.
We help our customers meet their reporting requirements by providing the relevant information. We evaluate our supply chain for conflict minerals with the help of the Conflict Minerals Reporting Template, which has been developed by the Conflict Free Sourcing Initiative (CFSI) to identify the country of origin of the mineral as well as the smelter and refinery in charge.
In order to answer our customers' inquiries in the best possible way, we have also registered with the Silicon Expert database (http://www.siliconexpert.com/). Silicon Expert works directly with component and product manufacturers to collect data on conflict minerals. Silicon Expert provides information on over 300 million parts from over 15,000 manufacturers.
We ask our suppliers to refer the 3TG material portion in the products they supply to us exclusively from conflict-free or certified smelters (smelters whose due diligence practices have been audited by an independent entity). Suppliers are also requested to communicate the names of their smelters by theConflict Minerals Reporting Template.