The following is a statement by William T. Archey, AeA President and CEO, in response to Senator William H. Frist’s letter written today to SEC Chairman William Donaldson

“AeA supports the arguments made today [September 29, 2004] in Senator Frist’s letter to Chairman Donaldson regarding the valuation of stock options. The letter is a thoughtful and proportional response to a process that, thus far, has completely disregarded the very real, very substantial difficulties with FASB’s valuation models.  The Majority Leader is asking the SEC to come up with an accurate method in determining the value of stock options and ‘take the appropriate time necessary’ to ensure that outcome.  Currently, 14 million American workers receive stock options and many of them, if not most, are employed in the high-tech industry.

“On September 21, 2004, AeA flew in over 30 high-tech executives from small- and medium-sized companies across the United States to lobby the U.S. Senate against stock options expensing.  Meetings were also held with SEC Commissioners Cynthia Glassman, Roel Campos, and Harvey J. Goldschmid, as well as SEC Chairman Donaldson's Policy Adviser, Patrick Von Bargen, and many of the same arguments were made.”

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 AeA, founded in 1943, is a nationwide trade association that represents all segments of the technology industry and is dedicated solely to helping our members’ top line and bottom line. We do this in partnership with our small, medium, and large member companies by lobbying governments at the state, federal, and international levels, providing access to capital and business opportunities, and offering select business services and networking programs.  For more information, please visit http://www.aeanet.org.

This page was last updated on 09/29/04.