SEC Awash in Deluge of Certifications

The Securities and Exchange Commission continued to scramble Thursday to deal with the rush of sworn statements by executives certifying their companies’ earnings, as required by an SEC edict.

“We’re back into the paper age, with all its chaos,” said SEC spokesman John Heine in Washington, when asked why a number of companies that said they filed their certifications had not been listed as such on the agency’s Web site at midday Thursday.

By 5:30 EDT Wednesday, chief executives and chief financial officers of about 700 companies each with more than $1.2 billion in revenue had to file statements that their latest quarterly and annual reports were accurate. Another 250 companies faced filing deadlines later this year.

A check of the SEC’s Web site (www.sec.gov) Thursday evening showed that only about a dozen companies that had been required to file by Wednesday weren’t listed as having done so. However, Heine said it may take a few days for the site to be completely updated.

Firms had until 5:30 p.m. on Thursday to ask for a five-day extension, but there was no one at the SEC keeping track of how many companies had made such a request, Heine said. One was chemical firm Hercules Inc., which said it needed more time to check accounting related to a divestiture.

Treasury Secretary Paul H. O’Neill, speaking in Denver, said he viewed the certification deadline as a turning point in the corporate accountability crisis.

“I frankly cannot imagine that anybody filed any of those papers without careful consideration from their financial people and their lawyers and their spouses. I don’t think there were any casual signatures,” O’Neill said.

He conceded that some CEOs are not happy about their increased liability for the accuracy of their firms’ financial statements. “They’re not sure it’s fair,” he said.