E. G. Bernie Madoff, The Sarbanes-Oxley Act Of 2002

Several high-profile cases of corporate financial fraud primarily the scandals involving Enron and Worldcom lead to the creation of The Sarbanes-Oxley legislation. SOX requires that companies maintain an archive of all business records for not less than five years. If found in violation of these requirements, consequences could involve potentially accruing fines or jail time.

Professional auditing standards discuss the three key “conditions” that are typically present when a financial fraud occurs and identify a lengthy list of “fraud risk factors.”

The most common accounting fraud is the misrepresentation of financial statements which is frequently known as “cooking the books” and includes manipulation, falsification, or alteration of accounting records, intentional omission from the financial statements and intentional misapplication of accounting principles relating to amounts, classification, manner of presentation, or disclosure.

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 was introduced by Senator Paul Sarbanes, a Democrat from Maryland and Congressman Michael Oxley, a Republican from Ohio. President George W. Bush signed the bill into law in July 30, 2002.

Also the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934 rival the SOX act in its effects on public accounting, corporate governance, and financial disclosure. By the year 2002 former President George Bush signed the act producing a change of reforms that were obligated by the act which ultimately became public law.

This memorandum discusses a brief history of Pat, his wrongdoings and related action, and the response by the related law enforcement agencies.

Despite impacting the national economy as well as investors, the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation also has had a considerable impact on information technology organizations. When in 2002 George W. Bush signed the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation he noted that this is the most important and far-reaching reform that the United States has had since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt (Damianides, 2005). The impact that the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation has had

The Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act was passed by Congress in 2002 to address issues in auditing, corporate governance and capital markets that Congress believed existed. These deficiencies let to several cases of accounting irregularities and securities fraud. According to the Student Guide to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act many changes were made to securities law. A new federal agency was created, the entire accounting industry was restructured, Wall Street practices were reformed, corporate governance procedures were changed and stiffer penalties were given for insider trading and obstruction of justice (Prentice & Bredeson, 2010). Tenet Healthcare Corporation, one of the largest publicly traded healthcare companies in the US at the time, was accused

The Sarbanes Oxley Act was signed into law on July 30, 2002 by then President

The new Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed with flying colors. In the Senate it passed unanimously 99 to 0, while in the House of Representatives it passed 423 in favor, 3 opposed, and 8 abstaining. Later that year, on July 30, 2002, President George W. Bush signed off on it making it a law.

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 of 2002 is one of the most important legislations passed in the 21st century effecting financial practice and corporate governance. This act was passed on July 30, 2002 thanks to Representative Michael Oxley a republican from Ohio and Senator Paul Sarbanes a democrat from Maryland. They both passed two different bills that pertain to the same problem which had to do with corporation's auditing accountability and financial fraud problems within corporations. One was bill (S. 2673) brought by Senator Sarbanes and the other bill (H. R. 3763) brought by Representative Oxley. Both bills where passed separately one by the house and the other by the

      The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was enacted in July 30, 2002, by Congress to protect shareholders and the general

Financial statement fraud is usually a means to an end rather than an end in itself. When people "cook the books" they may doing it to "buy more time" to quietly fix business problems that prevent their entities from achieving its expected earnings or complying with loan covenants (Fraud Magazine, 2014. It may also be done to obtain or renew financing that would not be granted or would be smaller if honest financial statements were provided. People intent on profiting from crime may commit financial statement fraud to obtain loans they can then siphon off for personal gain or to inflate the price of the company 's shares, allowing them to sell their holdings or exercise stock options at a profit (Fraud Magazine, 2014). However, in many past cases of financial statement fraud, the perpetrators have gained little or nothing personally in financial terms. Instead the focus appears to have been preserving their status as leaders of the entity - a status that might have been lost