Ellison: 'You can trust our accounts'

NEWS Oracle boss Larry Ellison has become the first high-tech chief exec to publicly proclaim the probity of his company's accounts in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals and US regulators' shake-up of the business world. CEOs and CFOs of companies with over $1.2bn in annual sales must now personally vouch for the accuracy of their reported financial figures. Ellison and Oracle CFO Jeff Henley did just that yesterday by declaring that, to the best of their knowledge, the company's reports were free of untrue statements and misleading omissions. The filing was made with the Securities and Exchange Commission late on Monday. About 40 other Silicon Valley companies are set to follow suit before the deadline set by the SEC to make such statements passes in a month's time.