Pocket 2000: Implementation

Pocket 2000

Different countries are developing different regimes regarding

Implementation news

From 1998, companies in the United Kingdom and the United States, at least, have to report on their plans and expenditure for Year 2000. In the USA, The "Good Samaritan Act" became law at the end of 1998, exempting Year 2000 disclosures from threat of legal action.

United Kingdom and Europe

The Urgent Issues Task Force (UITF) of the Accounting Standards Board in the UK has set down the following rules for companies with accounting periods ending on or after 23rd March, 1998. Smaller entities are exempt from disclosure, but, nevertheless, are recommended to make it.

(a) the risks and uncertainties associated with Year 2000 problems. If the company has made no assessment of the problem or has not determined its materiality, this must be stated.
(b) the company's general plans to address the Year 2000 issues relating to its business and operations, and, if material, its relationships with customers, suppliers and other relevant parties
(c) the estimated costs of the plans

Thanks for this summary to Mike Kusmirak of CompInfo who also provide links to manufacturers' compliance statements (15 May 98)

British Petroleum (UK/worldwide): substantial Millennium Project beginning with the appointment of an overall Project Manager at the start of 1997 (23 Mar 98)
SmithKline Beecham (UK/US/worldwide): company-wide project begun in 1996 (23 Mar 98)
Halifax (UK, formerly Halifax Building Society): minimal statement, no financial figures, but the link is on the main home page (25 Mar 98)
NOP Research Group (UK, market research agency) provide a summary of their own Year 2000 project (7 Oct 98)
Reed Elsevier, publishers worldwide, offer a brief statement on their Compliance Programme, quoting estimates of UK£75m (20 Apr 98)
Reuter's, worldwide financial data provider, have a section of their main website devoted to their millennium programme including their own product compliance (20 Apr 98)
Health Informatics Journal carried out a survey of Year 2000 issues in healthcare and healthcare computing (11 Oct 1998)
Royal Dutch Shell Group operates as a consortium of international and operating companies and each company is responsible for its own efforts; reporting is via the Chief Financial Officers. Here is the Shell Oil Company, the US downstream operating company (11 May 99)

USA

J P Morgan provide Year 2000 Readiness Disclosure information focussing on product and service delivery (1 Nov 1998)
Securities & Exchange Commission: regulations on corporate disclosure (21 Apr 98)
Y2K Corporate Disclosure Project, with a searchable database of SEC disclosures from Ed Yardeni (14 May 98)
An early disclosure: DHL announce they will invest $25M to deal with Y2K (27 Nov 97)

Rest of World

Swedish Health Authority (Sjukvården) 2000-project embraces wide-ranging information on how Sweden is tackling Y2K in its healthcare sector, and links for implementors. In Swedish, but informative even if you don't speak the language, as it shows the extent of public sector commitment (6 May 98)
Telkom SA Ltd (South Africa) provides detailed information about their Year 2000 project. The link is directly from their Home Page, giving the project a high profile.Telkom has offered assistance to other Southern African countries (25 Mar 98)

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