SEC requires insider holdings reports online. (Highlights).

To disseminate information on corporate insiders' equity transactions more quickly and widely than ever before, the commission issued final rules--and updated its EDGAR filing manual--requiring officers, directors and anyone holding more than 10% of a company's outstanding stock to disclose transactions involving such holdings via a new Web-based system (https://www.onlineforms.edgarfiling.sec.gov) the SEC established for that purpose.

The deadlines for filing the reports--which include SEC Forms 3, Initial Statement of Beneficial Ownership of Securities; 4, Statement of Changes in Beneficial Ownership of Securities; and 5, Annual Statement of Beneficial Ownership of Securities--vary according to criteria specified in SEC rules related to the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 (www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/forms/16rules.htm). Further, the new provisions require a corporation that maintains a Web site to post the reports there by the end of the business day after it files them on the EDGAR system.

The rules (www.sec.gov/rules/final/33-88224.htm) implement provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. When they take effect June 30, the SEC will consider forms companies submit by 10 p.m. (ET) as filed on that same business day. In view of these extended filing hours, the commission no longer will allow temporary hardship exemptions for reports filed late.