Interactive Data and Financial Statements

On January 30, 2009, the Commission issued rules requiring companies to provide financial statement information in the XBRL interactive data format. Read the Commission's official release.

The rules apply to domestic and foreign companies using U.S. GAAP on a phase-in schedule and will eventually apply to foreign private issuers using International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board.

The rules require companies' primary financial statements, notes, and financial statement schedules to be provided in XBRL, along with some company identifier information. The rules supplement, but do not replace or change, disclosure using the traditional electronic filing formats in ASCII or HTML. Companies will submit XBRL filings alongside their traditional ASCII- or HTML-formatted filings.

XBRL filings are subject to limited liability within 24 months of the time the filer first is required to submit interactive data files. The limited liability provision terminates entirely as of October 31, 2014.

http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/xbrl/financial-statements.shtml