Gavin Newsom Signs New Law Requiring Companies To Disclose Historical Ties To Slavery

California’s biggest companies must now comb their own records and swear under oath whether they once profited from slavery.

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Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom approved Assembly Bill 2599, the Truth in Disclosure Act, on Sept. 30, according to CalMatters. The law covers firms operating in the state that bring in more than $100 million in yearly worldwide gross receipts, and it reaches only those that existed, or whose predecessor existed, on or before December 1964.

Covered companies must file sworn affidavits backed by perjury penalties, with the first round due Jan. 15, 2029. Their filings will feed a public, searchable database run by the state’s Civil Rights Department. (RELATED: King Charles Says No To Formal Apology For Slavery, Rules Out Reparations)

The platform cannot be built until lawmakers set aside money for it, and the agency then gets a full year from that funding to launch it, Revolt reported.

Not everyone backed it. Insurance firms said they already revealed their slavery ties under a separate 2000 state law, according to CalMatters. Michelle Connor of the Frederick Douglass Foundation of California testified against the measure, The Observer reported.

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Critics also warn that the requirement stacks another compliance cost onto businesses already weighing whether California is worth the price, according to ZeroHedge.

The law grows out of a reparations effort Newsom launched in 2020 when he created a task force to study the issue, CalMatters reported. That panel’s 2023 report carried more than 100 recommendations and estimated the state owes Black residents at least $800 billion for harms in policing, housing and health. Bryan, a Culver City Democrat, wrote the bill as a Legislative Black Caucus priority.

JP Morgan Chase ranks among the firms likely to file, CalMatters reported, because two banks it absorbed once accepted 13,000 enslaved people as loan collateral. Supporters say the records could help researchers tie present-day corporate wealth to that era.

“Once the public has this disclosure and we have a full accounting of the impact, then it’s up to us to decide what that means and what we’re going to do about it,” Bryan told CalMatters.

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