FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 95-190

Washington, D.C., September 28, 1995 -- Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt and Commissioner Steven Wallman today officially initiated the agency's new World Wide Web site as Chairman Levitt became its first official user. The site is now available to the public, at no cost, at the following World Wide Web address: http://www.sec.gov.

The SEC site offers a broad menu of services, including corporate financial information from the EDGAR database; information on SEC operations and underlying Acts; SEC-produced investor brochures, publications and alerts; speeches, congressional testimony, press releases and daily information on Commission enforcement actions included in the SEC News Digest; and rulemaking proposals, as well as final rules.

The SEC began work to establish a Web site earlier this year; at the same time, a pilot project sponsored by the National Science Foundation demonstrated that the Commission's EDGAR database could successfully be included in the Internet offering. The pilot was administered by the Internet Multicasting Service, whose Director, Carl Malamud, played a key role in establishing the new SEC site.

Working with Congress, particularly with Congressmen Jack Fields (R-TX), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance, and Dan Frisa (R- NY), John Dingell (D-MI) and Ed Markey (D-MA), the Commission has been undergoing a thorough review of its use of technology to better communicate with investors and to simplify requirements and cut costs for corporate filers.

Chairman Levitt said, "The SEC is charged with the responsibility to make corporate information available to investors, and some 12 million documents are filed with us annually. This new site will take information collected by the SEC and make it more widely available to the investing public. Investors will benefit, and so will our capital markets."

Commissioner Wallman said, "One of the Commission's primary functions is to ensure timely, full, and fair disclosure to the market and public of corporate information filed with us. This disclosure enables our capital markets to operate efficiently and provides investors with the information they need to make informed investment decisions. With new technologies, we have made that information available on a next-day basis to anyone with access to a computer and Internet interface."