June 16, 2004

The stock of hundreds of U.S. publicly traded companies recently has been listed on the Berlin-Bremen Stock Exchange, one of three German exchanges, without these companies’ knowledge or permission. Other U.S. public companies have listings pending, nearly all without these companies’ authorization or consent. The Berlin-Bremen Exchange has less stringent listing requirements than other domestic and foreign exchanges, as the stocks that it lists are generally listed on and regulated by other markets. Consequently, any authorized broker may list a company’s stock on the Berlin-Bremen Exchange by filing an application for a permit to trade a company’s stock with the Berlin-Bremen Exchange.

These unauthorized listings could be used by certain domestic and foreign brokers to circumvent specific trading restrictions imposed by the National Association of Securities Dealers and the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate “naked short selling.” To short-sell a stock, a seller borrows shares of a company’s stock and sells them, intending to buy the shares back on a later date at a lower price. The seller then returns the shares to their rightful owner. Naked short selling occurs when a seller sells stock without knowing for certain that the stock is available to be borrowed, making the seller potentially unable to deliver the stock to a buyer purchasing the stock. The practice of naked short selling may allow for market manipulation if groups of individuals sell fictitious shares of a company’s stock in an effort to force that company's stock price to go down.

To determine whether a company’s stock has been listed on the Berlin-Bremen Exchange:

Visit Yahoo Finance’s website at http://finance.yahoo.com; and
Enter the company’s ticker symbol followed by ".be".
If a company’s stock is listed, a Berlin-Bremen Exchange listing reference will appear on the page. If an application for a company’s stock is pending, the page will display all zeroes.

What to Do Now: If a company learns that its stock has been listed on the Berlin-Bremen Exchange and wants to have it delisted, the company should contact the Berlin-Bremen Exchange (or the broker that listed its stock on the Berlin-Bremen Exchange) and request an immediate halt to the trading of its stock, as well as an immediate delisting of the stock. The company also may wish to contact counsel for assistance with this matter. After a company has requested that its stock be delisted, the company should check Yahoo Finance’s website to determine whether or not its stock actually has been delisted.