HOUSTON: An influential group that sets widely followed tax-reporting standards for major commodities suppliers in 55 countries will meet privately today to discuss removing an Exxon Mobil Corp representative from its board.

       The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (Eiti) will look into a complaint that Matthew Gobush, a government relations executive at Exxon and its representative at Eiti’s board, lobbied against the very standards the organisation defends, people familiar with the matter said, declining to be named because the procedure is confidential.

       Publish What You Pay, an advocacy group that has supported the Eiti since 2003, filed the complaint and is threatening to pull out of the organisation should it not take appropriate action.

       “Exxon is threatening to make a mockery of the Eiti and discredit the entire initiative, ” Kathleen Brophy, US director for Publish What You Pay, said in a statement. If its complaint doesn’t result in action, the advocacy group “will express a vote of no confidence in the Eiti Board and encourage all civil society groups to do the same.”

       The complaint comes at a critical time for Exxon after activist shareholders that have grown frustrated with the company’s environmental, social and governance record succeeded in replacing three board members last month.

       Meanwhile, the Eiti is facing calls to beef up its requirements for member companies, a third of whom fail to uphold the body’s own standards.

       Exxon, a founding member of the Eiti, said it’s aware of the complaint and offered to discuss it with Publish What You Pay. The complaint “lacks merit on procedural and policy grounds and should be dismissed, ” the US oil giant said, adding it supports “the need for relevant public and private company government payment disclosure.”

       Publish What You Pay US accuses Gobush of failing to uphold Eiti principles when he attended meetings alongside lobbyists from the American Petroleum Institute and others last year, when the Securities and Exchange Commission was developing rules on how natural resource companies should disclose payment to governments.

       As an Eiti board member Gobush should uphold its principles of promoting tax transparency, according to the complaint.

       The Eiti declined to comment on the case because it concerns an individual board member, spokeswoman Joanne Jones said in a statement. “We are still following our internal processes regarding the matter, ” she said.

       The complaint against Gobush is a symptom of a wider frustration that advocacy groups and some of Eiti’s 55 member countries have had with the organisation for many years.

       It was set up in the early 2000s to develop a global tax and royalty disclosure mechanism to increase payment transparency and help root out corruption in the natural resources industry. But campaigners accuse Exxon and other American oil companies including Chevron Corp of lobbying against the Eiti’s standard while also enjoying the reputational benefits of being a member.

       Last year, the SEC invited the public to comment on its rules for Section 1504 of the Dodd Frank Act, which governs how natural resource companies disclose payment to governments. — Bloomberg