Summary of Recent Developments in Executive Compensation

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the "Act"), enacted on July 30, 2002, was designed to prevent deceptive management and accounting practices and to enhance financial reporting and disclosure. The Act was adopted to restore investor confidence in the United States securities markets and aims to accomplish this task by protecting benefit plan participants from corporate abuses, to increase transparency as to the methods used by issuers to compensate insiders (e.g., executive officers and directors of an issuer), to prevent deceptive practices in management, and to accelerate disclosure to the marketplace of transactions engaged in by insiders.