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Did you know that Thomas Jefferson had only 17 days to write the Declaration of Independence? I admit feeling conflicted that we still celebrate someone who turned out to be so pro-slavery in his older years, but I also find it impressive that young TJ met that deadline.

Beware EDGAR Technical Issues

It’s not the news I want to be bringing as we head into a holiday weekend, but it’s time to end the silent suffering of those who’ve attempted filings this week. With end-of-period equity awards triggering Form 4s, that’s a lot of people!

After a day of headaches on Monday, the SEC’s EDGAR Filer Communications circulated an email late that evening reporting the issues experienced at 4:30pm – right as many were trying to make filings – had been resolved (there had been no notice earlier in the day that an issue was occurring, and there were a lot of frustrated people attempting filings and questioning whether their filing agent was to blame). The “EDGAR News & Announcements” page offers this relief:

The SEC will automatically date as June 29, 2020 all filings made between 5:30 p.m. ET and 10:30 p.m. ET on June 29, 2020. For other filing date adjustments, please contact Filer Support at 202-551-8900 option 3.

However, Monday’s email also warned that filers could continue to experience technical problems with their custom codes. That happened yesterday, with a notice in the morning that EDGAR was experiencing technical difficulties and a notice in the afternoon that EDGAR would be down for a short amount of time for technical repair.

Kudos to the SEC for making real-time announcements yesterday and for keeping the “EDGAR News & Announcements” page updated – you should visit that page and follow the posted instructions if you’re having problems. Fingers crossed that the issue is now fully resolved!

– Liz Dunshee