Your're right. The safe harbor statement limits the liability of the speaker.

But, without it Schwartz was still the CEO of Sun, which I'm sure is why he was surprised with McNealy's statement.

Without a safe harbor statement, the statement of the CEO is simply the statement of the CEO without the limitation of liability.

If investors had to worry about what was a "real" or "non-personal" or "official" statement the system would be a mess. Hence the SEC rules.

A statement by an officer of a corporation regarding their company is just that. No caveats, and in some cases even a "safe harbor" clause doesn't limit their liability.

Otherwise you would have seen "Not Really" tacked at the end of every Madoff Investment Securities statement.

But, your honor, we left the safe harbor clause off every profit announcement and replaced it with "Don't Panic"

-- nyarlathotep

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]