The Financial Post reports in its Wednesday edition a Securities and Exchange Commission rule forcing manufacturers to disclose whether any "conflict minerals" are used in their products violates their free-speech rights, a U.S. Appeals Court held Tuesday. A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post says the rule was part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act overhauling regulations of securities markets and applied to some minerals, including gold, tin, tungsten and tantalum, mined especially in Democratic Republic of the Congo. The idea was to help ensure that use of the minerals did not benefit armed groups responsible for violence in the region. The rule, however, went beyond disclosure that was merely factual and non-ideological, U.S. Circuit Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote for the majority of a three-judge panel in Washington. "It requires an issuer to tell consumers that its products are ethically tainted" and leaves a company unable to use its free-speech right to dispute that assessment by remaining silent, Judge Randolph wrote. "By compelling an issuer to confess blood on its hands, the statute interferes with that exercise of the freedom of speech under the First Amendment." The SEC is studying the ruling, an official said.