Excerpt from Current Issues and Rulemaking Projects Outline Quarterly Update (June 30, 2001)

Confidential Treatment of Supplemental Materials, Including Responses to Staff Comments

Issuers requesting confidential treatment of information submitted to the staff in other than a filing must rely on the procedural provisions of Rule 83 and Regulation S-T. Rules 406 and 24b-2 relate only to filed materials, not to materials submitted to the staff supplementally. While Item 101(a) of Regulation S-T requires that all correspondence, including responses to staff comment letters, be filed in electronic format on EDGAR, confidential treatment cannot be granted for materials filed in electronic format. Confidential treatment can only be granted for information filed in paper. If you wish to request confidential treatment for any portion of a supplemental submission, you must submit the supplemental submission on EDGAR with the information subject to the confidential treatment request omitted from the electronic submission. You must also submit the entire supplemental document to the staff in paper. You must mark the information for which you are requesting confidential treatment as sensitive or confidential in the paper copy and include the legend required by Rule 83.

Confidential Treatment Requests in Connection with Transactional Filings

We must complete the processing of all of an issuer's pending applications for confidential treatment prior to taking action on a transactional filing. To avoid delays in the processing of transactional filings, it is helpful when an issuer notifies the examination staff of pending confidential treatment applications when a transactional filing is made. The notification can be part of the cover letter to the filing or can be made to the Office of the Assistant Director responsible for processing the issuer's filings.

http://www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/guidance/ci063001ex_ctr.htm