"As they stated on Thursday last week ..."they are now expected...

"As they stated on Thursday last week ..."they are now expected to be lodged as early as Tuesday 21 May 2013". That is very different statement to "they are now expected to be lodged at the earliest by Tuesday 21 May". The former sets an expectation that they will be lodged by Tuesday, the latter sets the expectation they could be lodged by Tuesday, but probably wont be."

I disagree completely with your interpretation and agree completely with Bayesman's interpretation. The statement could have also been rewritten as:

"They are now expected to be lodged early, with the earliest date of release being 21 May 2013"

Perhaps look at this website that explains the use of the term "as early as":

http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/ask-teacher/57481-meaning-adjective-structures.html

Take a look at the second post which explains the meaning of the sentence "He wakes up as early as 6 o'clock every day".