WASHINGTON -- A pair of Securities and Exchange Commission commissioners yesterday called for a halt on conflict minerals reporting, citing First Amendment concerns identified by a circuit court.

Daniel Gallagher and Michael Piwowar issued a joint statement agreeing with an&nbsp April 14 decision rendered by the D.C. Circuit Court that found that requiring companies to disclose whether products are compliant with SEC rules covering the use of materials from the Democratic Republic of Congo violates the First Amendment.

The Court remanded the case to district court to determine how much of the rule is therefore unconstitutional.

"We believe that the entirety of the rule should be stayed, and no further regulatory obligations should be imposed, pending the outcome of this litigation. Indeed, a stay should have been granted when the litigation commenced in 2012," the commissioner wrote. "A full stay is essential because the district court could (and, in our view, should) determine that the entire rule is invalid."

The SEC has five commissioners who are appointed by the US President with the advice and consent of the Senate.

The rule, legislated via the Dodd-Frank Act, Section 1502, requires companies traded on US stock exchanges to disclose whether any materials used in their products come from DRC mines.

The logic behind the act is wrong, the two commissioners argued, because even reports that declare company "conflict-free" would in fact "suggest that the [company] may have 'blood on its hands' since it is sourcing certain minerals from the DRC."

"The First Amendment concerns permeate all the required disclosures, not just the listing of products that have not been determined to be DRC-conflict free," the commissioners said.

The Court finding could drive Congress to change the law, the commissioners wrote. "A finding that the entire rule is invalid, and that the invalidity is rooted in the statute, would permit Congress to reconsider whether Section 1502 achieves the benefits that it was supposed to attain."

The commissioners said the rule has cost its member companies billions of dollars and resulted in a de facto embargo on Congolese tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold, eliminating those suppliers from the supply chain and "impoverishing approximately a million legitimate miners."

"A full stay of the effective and compliance dates of the conflict minerals rule would not fix the damage this rule has already caused, but it would at least stanch some of the bleeding," they said.

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