Boardroom Excellence: A Commonsense Perspective on Corporate Governance (2004) by Paul Brountas

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 is a U.S. federal law that has generated much controversy, and involved the response to the financial scandals of some large corporations such as Enron, Tyco International, WorldCom and Peregrine Systems. These scandals brought down the public confidence in auditing and accounting firms. The law is named after Senator Paul Sarbanes Democratic Party and GOP Congressman Michael G. Oxley. It was passed by large majorities in both Congress and the Senate and covers and sets new performance standards for boards of directors and managers of companies and accounting mechanisms of all publicly traded companies in America. It also introduces criminal liability for the board of directors and a requirement by

The purpose of this memo is to provide you with information on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX Act) and to describe the importance of its implementation, per your request. The SOX Act was first introduced in the house as the “Corporate and Auditing Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency Act of 2002” by Michael Oxley on February 14, 2002. Paul Sarbanes, a Democrat U.S. Senator, collaborated with Mr. Oxley, a Republican US Senator, creating significant bipartisan support. The SOX Act was enacted by the end of July 2002 in response to recent corporate accounting scandals. The twin scandals that were impetus for the legislation involved the corporations of Enron and WorldCom.

In order to ensure effective regulation, the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation contains eleven sections that describe responsibilities of corporate boards (Engel, Hayes, & Wang, 2007). In case these responsibilities are not performed, criminal penalties are applied. The need for stricter financial governance laws created the global trend and such countries as Canada, Germany, France, Australia, Israel, Turkey and others also enacted the same type of regulations (Damianides, 2005). Today, the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation continues to play a fundamental role in the process of protecting the rights of investors and supporting a high level of investment attractiveness of the United States and companies that operate in the country. That is why this particular legislation can be considered as extremely benefiting for the national economy as well as investors.

Since the financial crisis investors have become less confident in the companies within the market. In order to restore confidence within the market and the audits of their financial statements Senator Sarbanes and Representative Oxley created the legislation known as the Sarbanes Oxley Act which came into effect in 2002. The legislation created major regulations on company financial reporting and the regulation of it. Forcing management to be accountable for the financial reporting and internal controls within their company and requiring the audit committees to report on their opinion of the company’s internal processes. (Soxlaw.com)

The act identifies and assigns accountability to those who knowingly falsify documents and it clearly states the consequences for acting outside the defined standard, relating to corporate governance. Using case studies we will review how the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is helping to standardized a code of conduct and how it has increased the awareness of corporate responsibility. First, we will review the definitions of corporate governance, business ethics and corporate responsibility. Next, we will examine the effectiveness of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, through a case study and identify possible challenges the Sarbanes-Oxley Act may face, as public demand for social responsibility increases. Finally, we will review proactive recommendations for provisions to key titles of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. These provisions will accommodate the growing public demand for ethical and social responsibility.

Senators Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley were the sponsors of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which represented a tremendous change to federal securities law. The act was signed into law by president George W. Bush who described it as “the most far reaching reforms of American business practices since the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt1.” After the financial scandals implicating Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing, the public needed to restore their trust in the public financial statements of the companies and that’s where the SOX Act of 2002 came into place. The act is composed of eleven titles which require numerous reforms to prevent accounting fraud, increase corporate responsibilities, among others.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was devised and designed to protect shareholders, as well as the public, from errors in corporate accounting and fraudulent business practices. All publicly traded companies, no matter their size, are required to comply with the terms of the Act. The Act was not only created to regulate corporate business practices, but also was created with the intention to help gain back the public’s trust in large, publicly traded corporations. The Act helps the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) in regulating companies and making sure these

In this paper, I will be discussing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. I will divide the paper up into four sections: the history of the act, trace its implementation, discuss its impact on society, and analyze the efficiency of the act. The act itself is made of of 11 sections or “titles”. Each title is a major key point in the act which also goes into more depth by containing several sections within it. This paper will me going over all of the sections covered in the act, but will focus on the major sections that have proven this act to be efficient in its purpose and the negatives as well. This act has been quite controversial regarding its strengths and weaknesses, but it contains some key values that should be used as a

A lot has been made, perhaps without justification, of the July 30, 2002 passage of H.R. 3763, The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 ("Sarbanes-Oxley" or The Act). Having read the Act, I suspect that the great praise is unfounded. I intend to address three issues presented within the act. First, I will address stock options as considered (or neglected, as the case may be) by Sarbanes-Oxley. Second, I will address the creation of a Commission designed to oversee audits and corporate accounting practices, and the potential efficacy of this Commission. Finally, I will address the modifications to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines as it relates to corporate fraud.

The Sarbanes Oxley Act came to existence after numerous scandals on financial misappropriation and inaccurate accounting records. The nature of scandals made it clear there are possible measure that could be used to prevent future occurrence of financial scandals. And the existence and effectiveness of Sarbanes Oxley has caused

The development of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was a result of public company scandals. The Enron and Worldcom scandals, for example, helped investor confidence in entities traded on the public markets weaken during 2001 and 2002. Congress was quick to respond to the political crisis and "enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which was signed into law by President Bush on July 30" (Edward Jones, 1), to restore investor confidence. In reference to SOX, penalties would be issued to non-ethical or non-law-abiding public companies and their executives, directors, auditors, attorneys, and securities analysts (1). SOX significantly transformed the procedures in which public companies handle internal

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

This paper provides an in-depth evaluation of Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which is said to be promoted to produce change in the corporate environment, in general, by stressing issues of public accountability and disclosure in the financial operations of business. It explains how this is an Act that represents the government's and the Security and Exchange Commission's concern in promoting ethical standards in terms of financial disclosure in the corporate environment.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) was enacted into law in 2002 in the wake of corporation financial reporting scandals involving large publicly held companies. SOX instituted new strict financial regulations with the intent of improving accounting practices and protecting investors from corporate misconduct. SOX requires corporate executives to vouch for the accuracy of financial statements, and to institute and monitor effective internal controls over financial reporting. The cost of implementing an effective internal control structure are onerous, and SOX inflicts opportunity costs upon an enterprise as executives have