Schlanger and Merrill to play a broader role in organization responsible for developing
 the US GAAP Taxonomies for the SEC

St. Paul, Minn. — Merrill Corporation, (http://www.merrillcorp.com/) a leading global provider of technology-enabled services for the financial, health care, real estate, legal and other corporate markets, today announced that Michael Schlanger, Merrill’s vice president of product management for XBRL, has been appointed to serve on the XBRL US board of directors. XBRL US is responsible for developing the US GAAP Taxonomies under a contract with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

XBRL, or eXtensible Business Reporting Language, is the global open standard to prepare, publish, exchange and analyze business reports and statements in a consistent, accurate and machine-readable format. On Dec. 17, 2008, the SEC adopted rules that require all public U.S. companies (and foreign companies that follow US GAAP rules) to file financial statements, footnotes and schedules in XBRL format. For more information, visit http://www.merrillcorp.com/xbrl.

“Having Mike at the table gives filers a voice and makes us a better consortium,” said Mark Bolgiano, president and CEO, XBRL US. “Input from companies like Merrill and other reporting organizations will be important as we expand beyond financial statement reports into areas such as corporate actions, governance and proxy statements.”  

Michael Schlanger joined Merrill Corporation in 2000. Mr. Schlanger develops financial product strategies in response to client and regulatory needs and is on the leadership team guiding the development and sale of Merrill’s XBRL service offering. Merrill offers a seamless end-to-end XBRL solution that includes expert consulting, mapping, tagging, creating the instance document in XBRL software, validating to the rules, and compliance filing with the SEC. This process is managed and controlled in-house by Merrill’s own XBRL team of experts.

“Merrill has consistently been an industry leader in the ever-changing financial printing industry,” said Allison Guidette, senior vice president of product management for Merrill Corporation. “Under Mike Schlanger’s leadership, Merrill has once again met our clients’ needs by helping them to prepare for and respond to the new XBRL mandate. Mike has been actively involved in the development of Merrill’s XBRL program since its inception, and we’re very pleased that XBRL US has recognized the valuable contribution he and Merrill can make by serving on its board of directors.”