California has enacted the Truth in Disclosure Act, requiring large companies operating in the state to investigate and disclose any historical ties to slavery by themselves or their predecessors. The law mandates public disclosure of findings through a digital platform once funded by the Legislature.
- The law applies to companies with over $100 million in annual worldwide gross receipts existing on or before December 31, 1964.
- Companies must search records for involvement in slavery beyond direct ownership, including financing, insurance, and related services.
- Disclosures must be submitted under penalty of perjury and can include names of enslaved people and slaveholders found in records.
- The California Civil Rights Department will create a searchable digital platform for public access to the records after funding is appropriated.
- The law is part of California's broader efforts on reparations and addressing the lasting effects of slavery and discrimination.
The New Law Requires Qualifying Companies to Search Their Records and Disclose Whether They or Their Predecessors Profited From Slavery
California has enacted a first-of-its-kind law requiring some of the nation’s largest companies doing business in the state to examine their histories and disclose whether they or their predecessors participated in or profited from slavery.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2599 on Sept. 30. Known as the Truth in Disclosure Act, the measure was authored by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan and was a priority of the California Legislative Black Caucus.
The governor’s office confirmed the bill among legislation signed Wednesday.
The law applies to businesses operating in California with more than $100 million in annual worldwide gross receipts that existed — or had a predecessor company that existed — on or before Dec. 31, 1964.
Those companies will be required, once funding is appropriated by the Legislature, to search records held by themselves and related entities for evidence of involvement in slavery.
That examination goes beyond whether a company directly owned enslaved people. Companies must look for records showing whether they or related entities bought or sold enslaved people, used enslaved people as collateral, financed their purchase, insured enslaved people or slavery-related transactions, or provided other services that facilitated those transactions.
Companies must then submit an affidavit under penalty of perjury detailing the results.
If relevant records exist, the disclosures can include the names of enslaved people and slaveholders found in company records, evidence of transactions that financially benefited from slavery and historical records involving insurance, financing and other business activities connected to slavery.
Records Will Become Public
The legislation also calls for the California Civil Rights Department to establish a digital platform where the affidavits, records and related data can be searched by the public. The platform must be created within one year after the Legislature appropriates funding for the program.
That could give descendants, historians, journalists and reparations researchers a centralized place to examine how wealth generated during slavery may connect to corporations that remain in business today.
Supporters of AB 2599 argued that corporate involvement in slavery extended across industries including banking, insurance, shipping, agriculture, railroads and textiles. The Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation and Truth was among the groups that pushed for the legislation.
The Equal Justice Society, which supported the bill, described disclosure as a step toward establishing a fuller historical record rather than reparations itself. The organization said California would become the first state to require corporations to declare under oath whether they or their predecessors profited from slavery.
California Continues Reparations Push
The new disclosure law comes out of California’s broader examination of reparations and the lasting effects of slavery and anti-Black discrimination.
In 2020, California established its Reparations Task Force, which spent two years studying slavery, discrimination and their continuing effects on Black Californians. Its final report, released in 2023, included more than 100 policy recommendations addressing the documented harms.
AB 2599 does not require corporations to pay reparations. Instead, it creates a mechanism for documenting whether companies that operate in California — or businesses they descended from — accumulated wealth through slavery.
For companies with histories stretching back generations, the law could bring records that have largely remained in corporate archives into public view.
