Corporate leaders - including some Bermuda chiefs - are being pressed to come clean with all accounting disclosures or risk personal liability for any false information.

The pressure is coming from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) - which sets reporting requirements for companies listed on American stock exchanges - in the face of plunging investor confidence.

SEC chairman Harvey Pitt said: “This is an unprecedented step to help restore investor confidence. We are demanding that CEOs and CFOs swear that the numbers they've reported in their financial reports are correct and that they've left nothing important out,” he said.

Investors have got cold feet after several large-scale accounting scandals from a number of large US corporations in recent months.

Shareholders' trust in corporate America took a beating after energy giant Enron reported $600 million in accounting irregularities late last year. And investor confidence was rattled again last week when it was revealed that telecom giant WorldCom had overstated close to $4 billion in revenue followed a day later by $6 billion in reclassified revenue by office supplies giant Xerox.

In the face of mounting corporate scandal the SEC acted quickly by announcing on Friday that it would require sworn individual statements from the top management of publicly-traded companies with more than $1.2 billion in annual revenue.

The SEC said it had been prompted to take action after “recent reports of accounting irregularities at public companies, including some large and seemingly well-regarded companies.”

The SEC stressed however that the order (no. 4-460) directly bears on company's officers with the requirement of filing their sworn statements in conjunction with annual and quarterly filings.

In the SEC statement, officers are personally attesting that the company's most recent period reports are materially truthful and complete or explain why such a statement would be incorrect, and whether or not the contents of that statement have been reviewed with the company's audit committee

A list of 945 companies was published by the SEC and lists at least a dozen companies with a Bermuda presence

The list, dubbed the “final 1000”, includes a number of the companies that have recently reincorporated to the Island such as Cooper Industries, Nabors and Foster Wheeler.

In addition, a number of insurance services firms with offices on the Island are listed including Marsh & McLennan, Aquila, American International Group and US firm St. Paul's Group which is in the process of establishing a Bermuda reinsurance company, Platinum.

Meanwhile, a number of high-profile Bermuda insurance firms - including ACE Ltd., XL Capital, PartnerRe and EverestRe - were not listed.

It is not known why certain public companies with revenues over $1.2 billion were not included and questions to the SEC by The Royal Gazette had not been answered by press time.

Leading insurance analyst Alice Schroeder indicated yesterday that although the criteria for omitting certain companies is not known, it is thought that all public companies will eventually be subject to this new requirement.

Ms Shroeder added: “Since virtually all companies are now advertising themselves as advocates of transparency, not filing this statement would seem to be a disadvantage in the capital markets.

“On the other hand, the statement obviously imposes a new level of accountability and potential legal liability on directors and officers. On balance, we believe that some larger companies not otherwise subject to the requirement might comply voluntarily,” she said.