Byron Dorgan: “Let me describe what this amendment is briefly. There was a Wall Street Journal article on July 8 this week titled…”

“Let me describe what this amendment is briefly. There was a Wall Street Journal article on July 8 this week titled: ``Offshore- based Firm's Officials Won't Have to Swear to Results.'' The Securities and Exchange Commission's new order requiring chief executives and chief financial officers of the nation's biggest companies to swear to the accuracy of their financial results was intended to restore investors' battered confidence. But two of the companies that have promised the biggest concerns don't have to comply. Why? Because Tyco International Ltd. and Global Crossing Ltd. are based in Bermuda, even though they conduct many of their operations and have main office in the United States and are listed on the U.S. stock exchanges. Securities and Exchange Commission spokesmen said large foreign-domiciled companies over which the SEC has jurisdiction, such as and Global Crossing and Tyco, were excluded from the list because the agency wanted to issue the order ``very quickly.'' Therefore it focused only on U.S. companies. So the Securities and Exchange Commission says that the chief executives and chief financial officers of some of the biggest companies must swear to the accuracy of their financial results. But in recent times, we have had U.S. corporations decide that they want to renounce their American citizenship and they want to become citizens, for example, of Bermuda. That is called a corporate inversion.…”