AOLTW EXECS CERTIFY RESULTS

AOLTW certified its financial results Wednesday.

After weeks of standing by its accounting, AOLTW acknowledged that there may be problems with the way its AOL unit recognized revenues from at least three transactions.The company said it has identified three transactions at its AOL unit totaling $49 million that may have been improperly recognized as revenue over a period of six quarters ended March 31, 2002.

Even so, the company said AOLTW Chief Executive Richard Parsons and CFO Wayne Pace signed the Securities and Exchange Commission's oath stating that "to the best of their knowledge" the company's financial statements are truthful.

The company has not yet determined whether the accounting was faulty, and it is reviewing those three transactions as well as others at its troubled AOL division. The Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the Justice Department are already investigating the accounting practices at AOL, according to the Associated Press.

Parsons said the company expected to complete its review by the end of the third quarter and would decide whether it needed to take any action to amend its previously reported financial results, according to wire reports.

The three transactions involved amount to $49 million, and any mistreatment of accounting could have serious implications for the company given the deep trouble caused by the recent wave of accounting scandals.

Wednesday's announcement marked a departure from AOLTW's previous assertions that its accounting was sound. The company did not identify which transactions were involved, but it said it had based its preliminary conclusion on information that came to light within the last 10 days. The transactions occurred from the last quarter of 2000 through the first quarter of this year.

``I am committed to completing our internal review and resolving those questions on a thorough and timely basis, and we are moving forward to implement additional internal controls at AOL,'' Parsons said in a statement.

Earlier Wednesday, the company said David Colburn, an executive who had negotiated many key advertising deals for AOL, had left the company late last week.