2/23/10 News on the 404(b) Sarbanes-Oxley Permanent Reprieve - No Vote Yet

Posted by Teresa Bockwoldt on February 22, 2010

There hasn't been any action yet in the Senate.

The next step for the permanent non-accelerated filer reprieve for Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is that the Senate must pass the bill and then it must be signed into law by the President.  Many fear that the new Republican Senator, Scott Brown, will cause the bill to fail in the Senate or that the section of the bill that is specific to Sarbox will be removed and therefore require non-accelerated filers to comply by the new deadline of June 15, 2010 (or your next fiscal year-end after that date).

According to Matt Kelly, editor-in-chief of Compliance Week, "...even if a Section 404(b) exemption gets inserted into the bill, and Republicans settle their differences with Dodd, and the Senate reconciles its bill with the House bill, and the 404(b) exemption survives that process, and both chambers then vote in favor of the full bill, and the president signs it into law-all this assumes Washington doesn't have other demands on its time, like starting over with healthcare legislation, or cutting the deficit, or running for re-election."

Long story short, if you haven't completed steps 1, 2 and 3 in the graphic below, you need to start thinking about it.  Especially considering steps 1, 2, and 3 have been required since 12/15/2007. 

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Tags: Non-accelerated filer 404(b) information