Last Thursday the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission announced [http://www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/cfannouncements/edgarcorrespondence.htm] that filing review correspondence with the Divisions of Corporation Finance and Investment Management now will be made public earlier. Currently, these Divisions release through EDGAR their comment letters related to disclosure filings that they have reviewed and the response letters “no earlier than 45 days after the review of the disclosure filing is complete.” Beginning January 1, 2012, these Divisions will release this review correspondence “”no earlier than 20 days after the review of the disclosure filing is complete.”
Public companies should monitor when their SEC review correspondence is released and alert their investor relations/public relations departments in advance so that they are prepared to field any inquiries related to these releases.