Ongoing SEC investigations may hit 'serious' problems
Published: 13 Sep 2001 16:36 BST
A major field office of the Securities and Exchange Commission was destroyed in Tuesday's attack on the World Trade Center, possibly creating serious problems for ongoing investigations of technology companies.
The Northeast Regional Office was located at 7 World Trade Center, which collapsed on Tuesday after hijacked airplanes destroyed the centre's two skyscrapers. The first priority was, of course, to confirm the health and safety of the workers, and the Commission said it believes all employees had been evacuated safely.
A spokeswoman for the SEC said it was to early to tell what the impact would be on ongoing investigations. She did say that the SEC has backups of electronic data, however.
Many tech companies have come under scrutiny by the Commission in the wake of the high-tech bubble. Over the past few years, businesses including Ashford.com, Amazon.com, Computer Associates International, Lucent Technologies, Motorola and Xerox have all disclosed investigations.
Experts said the destruction could have a lasting impact on those investigations.
"There, of course, will be substantial loss in paperwork and computer records, assuming that there's been a total physical loss in that office," said former SEC chairman David Ruder, now a law professor at Northwestern University in Chicago. "But the New York office, as a regular matter, communicates with the SEC office in Washington...So I would expect that a fair amount of paperwork has been saved in the Washington office," Ruder said. "Certainly the loss of interview notes and details of ongoing investigations are extremely serious."
Reuters contributed to this story.
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