Both executives certified financial statements that the Securities and Exchange Commission has ordered revised because of violations of accounting rules.

Mr. Pitt has tried to be an effective chairman, and deserves credit for ideas like making chief executives certify their financial results.

The law, passed in the wake of corporate scandals, requires executives to certify the quality of their companies' financial controls.

Top executives must certify their financial statements, after all.

Interpublic's executives will certify the company's quarterly earnings report, the company said yesterday.

This case is also unusual in that it represents the first charges filed under the Sarbanes-Oxley law's requirement that top corporate executives certify financial statements.

Top executives at nearly half the companies required to do so have certified their financial statements ahead of today's deadline.

Some countries have procedures by which the executive or legislative branches may certify important questions to the judiciary and obtain an advisory opinion.

Any executive who willfully - that is worse than knowingly - certifies such false filings faces up to 20 years in prison and a $5 million fine.

One proposed rule, for instance, would require executives to certify financial statements but is silent about the consequences of inaccuracies of the statements.