SEC Presses Companies on Consistent Electronic Tagging Mandate

Wall Street’s top regulator is reminding companies of its obligations to consistently electronically tag its securities filings.

The Securities and Exchange Commission division that reviews corporate reports is setting its sights on companies that do not provide required electronic tagging and on filings that have inconsistent or unique electronic tags, according to a sample letter the SEC released Thursday.

Public companies must code their financial filings with what’s called eXtensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, a machine-readable language that is supposed to help investors and data aggregators efficiently search and analyze companies.

The tagging is often inconsistent. Some ...