(The news featured below is a selection from the news covered in the Federal Securities Report Letter, which is distributed to subscribers of the Federal Securities Law Reports.)

Electronic Filing of Insider Holdings Mandated

The SEC voted to require that reports by insiders disclosing their securities holdings be filed electronically. Under new rules which will become effective June 30, 2003, beneficial ownership reports filed by officers, directors and principal stockholders under Exchange Act Section 16(a) must be filed electronically. In addition, issuers with corporate Web sites will be required to post these reports. The SEC stated that electronic filing and Web site posting of these reports will result in earlier public notification of insider transactions and will provide wider public availability of information about those transactions.

The new rules and amendments implement the requirements of Exchange Act Section 16(a)(4), as amended by Section 403 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Under the new rules and amendments, mandated electronic filing will apply to Forms 3, 4 and 5. To facilitate these filings, the SEC has established a new on-line filing system for these forms. An issuer that maintains a corporate Web site will be required to post on their site all Forms 3, 4 and 5 filed with respect to its equity securities by the end of the business day after filing. An issuer will be able to satisfy this requirement by providing direct access or by linking to a third-party site, such as EDGAR. In addition, the new rule amendments will eliminate magnetic cartridges as a means of filing any form electronically.

¨ The adopting release will be published in a forthcoming REPORT .