Companies are late filing quarterly reports in record numbers this summer, largely thanks to the first major accounting scandal after Sarbanes-Oxley: options backdating.
From Aug. 4 through Aug. 11 alone, nearly 140 companies with market capitalizations above $75 million notified the Securities and Exchange Commission they would be late filing their quarterly reports—up 52 percent from the same period one year earlier, according to proxy advisory firm Glass, Lewis & Co. Glass Lewis also reports more late filings in second-quarter 2006 than any other quarter since it began tracking such delinquencies at the start of 2004.
