Securities regulators are expected to give smaller U.S. public companies an additional one-year reprieve from a key part of the anti-fraud law enacted after the series of corporate scandals in 2001-2002.
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Wednesday it will vote next week on giving smaller companies, some of whom had complained about the burden of complying, a second extra year — until July 2007 — to meet the requirement to file reports on the strength of their internal financial controls under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The five-member commission is widely expected to adopt the change at its public meeting scheduled for next Wednesday.
