Mandated Electronic Filing and Web Site Posting for Forms 3, 4 and 5

We are adopting rule and form amendments to mandate the electronic filing, and Web site posting by issuers with corporate Web sites, of beneficial ownership reports filed by officers, directors and principal security holders under section 16(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, generally as required by section 403 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. We have implemented changes to the EDGAR system in order to facilitate electronic filing. In addition, we are adopting rule changes to eliminate magnetic cartridges as a means of electronic filing. The rule and form amendments generally are adopted as proposed. However, we adopt additional rule amendments that permit section 16 forms submitted by direct transmission on or before 10 p.m. Eastern time to be deemed filed on the same business day and make a temporary hardship exemption unavailable to these forms. The intended general effect of the proposals is to facilitate compliance with the will of Congress, as reflected in amended section 16(a), and to facilitate the more efficient transmission, dissemination, analysis, storage and retrieval of insider ownership and transaction information in a manner that will benefit investors, filers and the Commission.