The SEC tightly controls how publicly
quoted companies can announce information that could affect their
share prices. The regulator must ensure that no investor or
potential investor has access to information earlier than any
other. Current rules dictate that information can be made public by
a press release or by a telephone conference call but not simply on
a website.
"A couple [of] years ago, when I first started blogging, I
and our illustrious general counsel were far less worried about
what I was saying than where I was saying it," wrote Schwarz on his
blog. "For example, I couldn't use my blog to announce our
quarterly performance, or disclose a material transaction. I had to
use a press release, or a conference call with a telephone
operator, no less!"
Schwarz has written to Christopher Cox, the Chairman of the SEC,
asking for the rules to be changed. "Our corporate website
(www.sun.com) currently receives on (sic) average of nearly a
million hits per day," wrote Schwarz. "This website is a tremendous
vehicle for the broad delivery of timely and robust information
about our company. It is our view that proprietary news outlets are
insufficiently accessible to the broad majority of Internet users
and individual shareholders."
"It is certainly the case that the internet represents a broader
user base than those able to afford subscriptions to traditional
forms of media and thus usage of this or any other freely available
company blog or web site should be considered sufficient in
satisfying the objectives of Regulation Fair Disclosure," wrote
Schwarz.
Regulation Fair Disclosure is the set of rules governing the
release of information from listed companies. Schwarz is confident
of a sympathetic hearing from Cox. "Now we happen to have a
like-minded Chairman at the SEC," he wrote in his blog. "We've had
enough interaction with the Chairman (and read enough of his
writings) to know he understands the utility of the internet to
inform investors - but until we see a formal revision or
clarification to FD, we'll still be limiting what we disclose via
blogs and the internet. And consuming trees with press releases.
Which can't, in the long run, be all that desirable."
The SEC has said that using the internet to communicate is not
against its rules, which do not specify or rule out any medium, but
that any platform must be "broad and non-exclusionary".
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