Article by Ms Cécile King, Associate
On 27 August 2002, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") adopted new rules:
- mandating CEO and CFO certifications of annual and quarterly reports filed under the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"); and
- requiring issuers to maintain, and regularly evaluate the effectiveness of, certain disclosure controls and procedures (a concept introduced by the new rules) designed to ensure that the information required in reports filed under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarised and reported on a timely basis.
The new rules, which, among other things, implement Section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the "Act"), were issued on 29 August 2002 and became effective immediately. As had been announced by the SEC following the enactment of the Act, these rules extend the certification requirement to non-US issuers. Therefore, Australian companies that meet the issuer requirements set forth
