According to company chairman Gordon Arnell, deputy chair Bruce Flatt, president and CEO-elect Ric Clark and John Zuccotti, chairman Brookfield Financial Properties, tenants of two of the affected properties, comprising roughly half the total space, signed triple net bond leases, which stipulate that they must continue to pay rent regardless of damage to the building. The other two buildings' tenants, they say, are prohibited from terminating their leases for the next 18 months.

With regard to insurance coverage on the properties, Clark says, "all costs from the fallout of the attack including the full costs of repairs" are covered. He also says acts of terrorism are covered under the policy but that if the government deems the attack an act of war, "I believe it is exclusionary."

Clark disputes statements made over the weekend by Merrill Lynch following a tour of the Financial Center properties by company president and COO E. Stanley O'Neal. Merrill Lynch subsequently estimated that the firm would need up to three months to get its space at Four World Financial Center up and running and as long as a year to repair the damage at Two WFC, estimates that Clark called "conservative." Sticking to his claim of an eight-week rebuild, Clark says, "We continue to believe that we can get people into the buildings in that time frame."