CEO Council Objects to SEC 'Taxation Without Representation' of Public Companies to Fund Proposed Public Accountability Board; CEO Summit Scheduled Sept. 25 in Wash., DC.

Business Editors

The Securities & Exchange Commission's plan to fund its proposed Public Accountability Board is being opposed by the CEO Council, a recent non-profit organization representing the interests of small- and mid-cap public companies and their shareholders.

"This proposal is not likely to gain much widespread support if the SEC intends to tax public companies and their shareholders to pay for its governmental regulatory and oversight responsibilities," said Stephen Day, Director and Corporate Secretary for TVI Corp. (OTCBB: TVIN - news), a spokesperson for the Council, which will hold its first CEO Summit September 25, in Washington, DC, to coincide with the SEC's Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation scheduled September 26-27 in nearby Arlington, VA.

"Worse, it is a form of taxation without representation since no representatives of public companies or their shareholders are yet proposed to serve on the Board," said Day, who is also Chairman of the CEO Summit's Washington area host committee.

The Public Accountability Board, as outlined by the SEC, would have nine members, including three from the accounting profession and six from the public sector. There are no provisions for representation of the public companies being asked to foot the bill nor for any criteria for a level of expertise by the non-accounting members that would prevent accounting members from dominating the Board.

"If the SEC had been doing the job already assigned to it, and for which it already receives millions in Congressional funding, we would not now need to be adding another bureaucratic layer or taxing public companies and their shareholders," said Day.

"Public companies, currently suffering through substantially reduced market capitalizations, are already burdened with unduly skyrocketing costs of auditing, regulatory filings, exchange memberships, financings, disclosure documents and especially, legal fees and Directors and Officers insurance - all connected to escalating requirements. If global investor confidence in the imploding US Capital markets is to be restored, these costs all need to be reduced, not increased!"

The CEO Council, located on the web at http://www.ceocouncil.net, may contacted at http://www.ceocouncil.net/contact.html.

The CEO Summit is scheduled in The Great Hall of the Charles Sumner School Museum at 1201 Seventeenth Street in Washington, DC, September 25, 2002. The CEO Council is administered by Investrend Information at http://www.investrendinformation.com.