Washington, D.C., Nov. 19, 2008 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced the expected panelists for its November 21 roundtable concerning mark-to-market accounting.

The roundtable will be held at the SEC's Washington, D.C., headquarters and will begin at 9:30 a.m. ET with opening remarks from SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. The roundtable will have one panel discussion focused on:

• Usefulness of mark-to-market accounting to investors
• The sufficiency of information and the ability to improve the reliability regarding the valuation of assets recognized at fair value that do not currently trade in an active market
• Challenges encountered and best practice used by preparers of financial statements related to estimating fair value during the current market conditions
• Whether there are aspects of the current fair value measurement accounting standards that are not sufficiently clear, and if so, what are the areas that could be improved and how
• Whether there needs to be more education related to fair value measurements
• Challenges that auditors have faced and best practice employed in providing assurance regarding fair value accounting
• Ways to increase transparency and consistency in the application of impairment models for investments not held for trading purposes

Scheduled panelists include investors, issuers, auditors, and others with experience in mark-to-market accounting by financial institutions:

James Gilleran, former Director, Office of Thrift Supervision
Jay Hanson, McGladrey & Pullen, LLP
Richard Jones, Dechert LLP
Wayne Landsman, University of North Carolina
David Larsen, Duff and Phelps LLC
Dane Mott, JP Morgan Chase
Donald Nicolaisen, former Chief Accountant of the SEC
Samuel Ranzilla, KPMG LLP
David Runkle, Trilogy Global Advisors
Kevin Spataro, The Allstate Corporation
Mark Thresher, Nationwide Financial
Bob Traficanti, Citigroup

In addition, the following individuals are scheduled to participate in the panel discussion as observers:

Daniel Goelzer, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
Charles Holm, Federal Reserve Board
Kristen Jaconi, U.S. Department of the Treasury
Thomas Jones, International Accounting Standards Board
Thomas Linsmeier, Financial Accounting Standards Board

The roundtable is expected to conclude at approximately 12:30 p.m. ET.

The roundtable will be open to the public with seating on a first-come, first-serve basis. Doors will open at 9:00 a.m. ET. Visitors will be subject to security checks.

Live audio and video webcasts as well as materials related to the roundtable are available on the SEC Web site.

Mark to Market Definition from WikiPedia:

"Mark-to-market is an accounting methodology of assigning a value to a position held in a financial instrument based on the current market price for the instrument or similar instruments. For example, the final value of a futures contract that expires in 9 months will not be known until it expires. If it is marked to market, for accounting purposes it is assigned the value that it would currently fetch in the open market."

Click here for the full WikiPedia entry on mark-to-market accounting.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2008-271

Washington, D.C., Nov. 14, 2008 — The Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that on Nov. 21, 2008, at 9:30 a.m., ET, it will host the second of two roundtables on "mark-to-market" accounting and current market conditions.

This roundtable, along with the previous roundtable hosted on Oct. 21, 2008, will provide input to the SEC as part of a Congressionally mandated study pursuant to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.

This roundtable will consist of a single panel, which will focus on potential improvements to the current accounting model and implications of possible changes.

The panel will include investors, accountants, regulators, business leaders, and other interested parties. Additionally, representatives from the U.S Department of Treasury, Federal Reserve Board, Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), and Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) will be present as observers.

The roundtable will be held in the auditorium at the SEC's headquarters at 100 F Street, NE, in Washington, D.C. A final agenda including a list of participants and moderators will be announced at a future date. The roundtable will be open to the public with seating on a first-come, first-served basis. The roundtable also will be webcast on the SEC Web site.

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http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2008/2008-271.htm