Summary Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act

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 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, is an act passed by U.S. Congress on July 30, 2002. The primary reason was to protect investors from the possibility of fraudulent accounting activities by corporations. The act is commonly known as SOX Act. The act is named after its cosponsors, U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes and U.S. Representative Michael G. Oxley. It mandates strict reforms to improve financial disclosures from corporations and prevent accounting fraud. The Sarbanes Oxley Act is arranged into eleven titles. They are Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), Auditor Independence, Corporate Responsibility, Enhanced Financial Disclosures, Analyst Conflicts of Interest, Commission Resources and Authority, White Collar Crime Penalty Enhancement, Corporate Tax Returns, and Corporate Fraud Accountability. These titles provide the description of specific requirements and mandates for the financial reporting. The SOX Act monitors compliance through various sections. However, the most significant sections are 302 (Disclosure controls), 401 (Disclosures in periodic reports), 404 (Assessment of internal control), 802 (Criminal penalties for influencing US Agency investigation/proper administration). As a result of SOX Act, the top management must individually certify the accuracy of financial information. The Act increased the oversight role of board of directors and the independence of the outside

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

When revisiting some history where scandals have taken place such as Enron or WorldCom, it became necessary for stronger controls to be put in place and have all people involved held accountable for their actions. It is for this reason that Sarbanes-Oxley Act is in place. It has not stopped fraud from occurring; however, it does create a deterrent. In reading about the Societe Generale fiasco poor IT security is the focal point in this fraud. Stronger security controls will be the only way fraud of this magnitude will not take place again.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act arose as a result of several corporate accounting scandals that became public in late 2001 and early 2002. These scandals involved many publicly traded companies such as Enron, which “boosted profits and hid debts totaling over $1 billion by improperly using off-the-books partnerships”; WorldCom, which “overstated its cash flow by booking $3.8 billion in operating expenses as capital expenses and gave founder Bernard Ebbers $400 million in off-the-books loans”; and Xerox, which “falsified financial results for five years, boosting income by $1.5 billion”, among a long list of others (Patsuris, 2002). In the book Revolutionary Wealth, Alvin and Heidi Toffler (2006) explain that “slowly changing regulatory and

Financial reporting has been dissected over and over again by legislation. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hold the key to providing protection and integrity when companies are submitting their financial statements. Although their mission is to provide order and efficiency for financial markets, insidious plans are still developed by companies which ultimately result in turmoil to the economy. To provide a safeguard to investors, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was passed by congress in 2002, which was constructed because of fraudulent acts of well-known companies such as Enron. Before the SOX was inaugurated, two sets of accounting rules were used as guides for CPA firms.

After major corporate accounting scandals, especially from Enron and WorldCom, Congress enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. It is a United States federal law that set corporate governance over U.S. Public Companies. The bill contains eleven sections which hold a public corporation’s board of directors’ accountable, created criminal penalties for certain misconduct, and created regulations to define how public corporations are to comply with the law. Even though it was enacted almost fifteen years ago there is still debate and controversy. Even now there is talk about Congressional Republicans aiming to loosen a provision of Sarbanes-Oxley, which was introduced in the Financial Choice Act by Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas), the chairman of the

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was designed to create oversight and decrease the amount of corruption in the accounting industry. The Article includes a number of provisions dealing with financial reporting, conflicts of interest, corporate ethics and the oversight of the accounting profession, as well as establishing new civil and criminal penalties.

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

Although this law has key advantages, there are also some disadvantages. On of its biggest problems is that it can be very expensive. A lot of reserves need to be involved, that is a lot of money goes into simply following the practice. In order to fulfill these set rules, businesses have to pay a large sum of money. Though there are severe rules with this legislation, there is no supervision set forth as to how a firm should apply these practices. Every business has to put forward their own technique into place. In order to do so, the company has to spend a great amount of money towards success. This can harmfully affect an investor in the long run. When a business unexpectedly has a large, new expense to oversee, they will need to

After a prolonged length of corporate scandals involving big public businesses from 2000 to 2002, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act changed into enacted in July 2002 to restore buyers' self-belief in markets and near loopholes for public groups to defraud traders. The act had a profound effect on company governance within the country. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires public groups to bolster audit committees, carry out inner controls assessments, set personal liability of directors and officers for accuracy of financial statements, and enhance disclosure. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act also establishes stricter crook consequences for securities fraud and changes how public accounting companies operate their corporations.

LBJ Company has plans to go public, and the president requested an evaluation from our firm to understand the new rules of regulations. First of all, the firm will analyze rules that affect company’s transition from private to public. Second of all, LBJ Company should understand all internal controls system the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 enforced. This act requires that companies must maintain an acceptable internal controls systems. Also, it protects companies from corporate fraud by ensuring that these companies follow and apply specific procedures. All member of corporations should make sure that these controls are adequate and reliable. Furthermore, following the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, companies are more likely to attract investors

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

Indeed accountants are ethically obligated to report financial information accurately. In effect, Emerson, Conroy and Stanley (2007) stated that corporate scandals that made news, including Enron and WorldCom, triggered the public attention on the accounting practices that caused the fall of these companies. Consequently, the debate focused on blaming accounting practices or the standards. In order to resolve the issues of the standards, the US Congress has passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. In fact, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) revealed that this Act represented the most crucial legislation that affects the accounting profession since 1933. Moreover, one of the provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley constitutes

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