Corporate America again takes centre stage today as the deadline expires for chief executives and chief financial officers to certify that their company accounts are clean.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which regulates companies in the US, has asked the heads of 947 public companies to file sworn statements certifying the accuracy of their accounts for last year.
The move is a bid to restore battered investor confidence, in the wake of a series of scandals. It is also designed to aid the SEC in assessing whether it ought to change the rules governing corporate reporting and accounting.
No Irish companies rank among the 947 whose executives are expected to file a statement with the SEC. Before its fall from grace amid concerns over its accounting practices, Elan might have been among those expected to take the clean-book pledge, all of whom posted revenues of more than $1.2 billion (€1.22 billion) in their last financial year.
But its collapse since January means it does not now make the list.
But analysts said that if the list of those expected to certify the accuracy of their accounts was expanded in the future, Irish companies could be affected.
Senior executives of firms whose main listing is in the US, and which have reporting requirements there, could find themselves in the firing line, particularly if the scheme is expanded and becomes an accepted benchmark among investors.
These companies include SmartForce and Elan, both of whom have their main listing in the US.
Irish firms like AIB and Bank of Ireland, whose shares trade as American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) in the US and whose main listing is elsewhere, are unlikely to be affected in the short-term, brokers said.
Throughout yesterday, US companies continued to file statements with the SEC. But, despite an extended deadline for certain firms, the numbers still look like falling short when they are tallied today.
More than two-thirds of the nearly 950 companies that report on a calendar-year basis will have to meet the SEC deadline, unless they have already filed for an extension.
The remaining 200 companies using a fiscal year, such as Cisco Systems, will certify at a later date.
Stock markets are anxiously awaiting the final list of who has and who has not signed, amid fears that the exercise could spur renewed uncertainty in already volatile markets.
"If there are hundreds of S&P companies who have not signed, it can only be read as negative," one dealer said yesterday. "It will call into question the whole area of accounting standards again."
