An Analysis Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act Of 2002

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act and the Auditing Accountability and Responsibility Act, was signed into law on July 30, 2002, by President George W. Bush as a direct response to the corporate financial scandals of Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco International (Arens & Elders, 2006; King & Case, 2014;Rezaee & Crumbley, 2007). Fraudulent financial activities and substantial audit failures like those of Arthur Andersen and Ernst and Young had destroyed public trust and investor confidence in the accounting profession. The debilitating consequences of these perpetrators and their crimes summoned a massive effort by the government and the accounting profession to fight all forms of corruption through regulatory, legal, auditing, and accounting changes.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002Introduction2001-2002 was marked by the Arthur Andersen accounting scandal and the collapse of Enron and WorldCom. Corporate reforms were demanded by the government, the investors and the American public to prevent similar future occurrences. Viewed to be largely a result of failed or poor governance, insufficient disclosure practices, and a lack of satisfactory internal controls, in 2002 George W. Bush signed into law the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that became effective on July 30, 2002. Congress was seeking to set standards and guarantee the accuracy of financial reports.

The United States has one of the biggest and fastest growing economies of the world. Our financial system has been affected by numerous crises throughout the years and as a result Congress has reacted in the most recent times and two well-known acts have been signed into laws by the presidents at the time to protect investors and consumers alike. A brief overview of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, a discussion of some of the provisions therein, opinions of others regarding the act and also my personal and professional opinion will be discussed below. The same will be examined about the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Prior to the advent of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, referred to herein as “SOX,” the board of directors’ pivotal role was to advise senior leaders on the organization’s strategy, business model, and succession planning (Larcker, 2011, p. 3). Additionally, the board had the responsibility for risk management identification and risk mitigation oversight, determining executive benefits, and approval of significant acquisitions (Larcker, 2011, p. 3). Furthermore, for many public organizations, audit committees existed before SOX and provided oversight of internal processes and controls. Melissa Maleske (2012) advised that the roles and responsibilities of the board were viewed “…from a perspective that the board serves management” (p. 2). In contrast, Maleske (2012) noted that SOX regulations altered the landscape “…to a perspective that management is working for the board” (p. 2). SOX expanded not only the duties of the board and the audit committee, but also the authority of these bodies (Maleske, 2012, p. 2).

White collar crime has been around for ages. Today more and more news stories can be found where the elite, the top executives of fortune 500 companies, are being prosecuted for participating in illegal activities. It was hoped that the passing of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2001 after the Enron debacle would reduce the amount of illegal acts being committed in corporate America. The Sarbanes Oxley act makes executives personally responsible for their activities requiring top management to sign off on financial statements stating they are true and accurate and these executives can face jail time for committing fraudulent acts. Unfortunately, immorality in business is still running rampant. One illegal practice we see happening in

In his testimony concerning the implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission William H. Donaldson says that the first year of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has produced an impressive record of accomplishments in an incredibly short period of time. The Act set ambitious deadlines for more than 15 separate rulemaking projects by the Commission to implement many of the Act's provisions. The Commission provided a number of opportunities for public input on its proposals, and thousands of letters of public comment in crafting final rules were carefully

Currently, the credibility crisis in the accounting industry has become a serious worldwide problem. Especially in recent years, credibility scandals stacked, such as the Enron Scandal the company kept huge debts off the balance sheets, it makes shareholders lost $74 billion, after this there are also the WorldCom Scandal in 2002, the company underreported costs and inflated revenues with fake accounting entries, total inflated assets by $11 billion, and $3.8 billion of revenue fraud (Moberg & Romar). In the United States, the recent series of scandals caused by large companies makes the society become negative toward the markets, in order to restore public confidence in the markets. Within weeks of the scandal, Congress passed the

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was signed into law on July 30, 2002, by President George W. Bush; it was a congressional regulatory response to the enormously damaging corporate scandals at WorldCom, the Arthur Anderson accounting group and most notoriously, Enron. Because of the damage done not only to the reputations of those corporations and to the American corporate community but also to the stockholders and people who lost life savings (people who lost 401-K investments in the scandal), Congress had to take action to try and avoid scandals like these in the future. Hence, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was created and passed into law. Will it deter future criminal activity vis-à-vis corporate financial reporting? There is no guarantee that the Act will prevent future corruption, but this paper asserts that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is a step in the right direction.

The U.S. Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 due to scandals like Enron, Worldcom, and Tyco in early 2000. This Act was to serve as protection for investors from corporate malpractice and to encourage employees to report misdeeds when discovered. This Act was placed into law to protect investors against scandals like these in the future. Each of the top executives of these organizations played extensive roles in the extortion of funds that left the investors and shareholders without any recourse.

The Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act of 2002 was signed into federal law on July 30, 2002. The stated purpose of the law is "to protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made pursuant to the security laws, and for other purposes." The law has influenced long term changes in the way publicly traded companies manage auditors, financial reporting, executive responsibility and internal controls. SOX is considered the most substantial piece of corporate regulation since the securities laws of the 1930's (Stults, 2004).

he Securities and Exchange Commission was the two major Securities Act created by Congress in the 1930's to help the public and investors reconstruct their trust toward the securities market as the Stock Market Crash in 1929 had an effect on the public of the United Stated at the time(The Investor's Advocate,2013). The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is a federal agency, utilize the force of actions to enact federal securities laws, control regulation by rules, principles and adjust to standard requirements; the main purpose is to make sure the operation is accurate. In an effort to secure confidences and the reputation of the accounting professions, the Congress established the PCAOB which is supervised by the SEC to support the accuracy

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act(SOX) of 2002 was passed by the U.S congress to protect business investors from fraudulent activities by the corporations. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed down in responses to a series of high-profile financial scandals that occurred in the early 2000s at companies including WorldCom and Tyco that rattled investor confidence. The result was almost $6 trillions of stock market value loss. The act, drafted by U.S. Congressmen Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley, was aimed at improving corporate governance and accountability.

This chart from the site “Chaos of Business” shows the large decline of the Enron stock when it was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. People who had shares of the stock had lost almost all of their money they invested into the company. This chart shows that the share price dropped from $84 per share to $0.01 per share in about ten months. It seems like not a big deal, but in reality people usually buy hundreds of shares in a company, so that loss of $84 can calculate to about $25,200 if a person has 300 shares lost. This chart shows how quickly the money was lost and how badly it affected the people who owned shares of Enron.

Global bribery scandals in the 1970s brought about the first developmental period of codes (Messikomer & Cirka, 2010, p. 57). Later, after the public discomfort towards continuous ethical lapses of major U.S. corporations, the United States Congress enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 on July 29, 2002. This Act required American companies to reveal whether it has adopted a code of ethics (McCraw, Moffeit, & O’Malley, 2008; Schwartz, 2004). In this Act, the term ‘‘code of ethics’’ referred to written standards that are designed to deter wrongdoing and to promote

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was enacted in July 30, 2002, by Congress to protect shareholders and the general public from fraudulent corporate practices and accounting errors and to maintain auditor independence.   In protecting the shareholders and the general public the SOX Act is intended to improve the transparency of the financial reporting.   Financial reports are to be certified by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) creating increased responsibility and independence with auditing by independent audit firms. In discussing the SOX Act, we will focus on how this act affects the CEOs; CFOs; outside independent audit firms; the advantages and a