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 2002 was implemented and designed to “protect the interests of the investing public” and the “mission is to set and enforce practice standards for a new class of firms registered to audit publicly held companies” (Verschoor, 2012). During the early 2000 's, the world saw an alarming number of accounting scandals take place resulting in many corporations going bankrupt. Some of the major companies involved in these scandals were from Enron, WorldCom, and one of the top five accounting and auditing firms, Arthur Andersen. These companies were dishonest with their financial statements, assuring the public the company was very successful, when in reality they were not. This became a problem because if the public believes a company is doing well, they are more likely to invest in it. That is to say, once these companies were exposed, it caused a number of companies going bankrupt and a major mistrust between the public and the capital market. Consequently, the federal government quickly took action and enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley act of 2002, also known as SOX, which was created by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Many have questioned what Norman Bowie (2004) had questioned,

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 of 2002 (SOX) was enacted to bring back public trust in markets. Building trust requires ethics within organizations. Through codes of ethics, organizations are put in line to conduct themselves in a manner that promotes public trust. Through defining a code of ethics, organizations can follow, market becomes fair for investors to have confidence in the integrity of the disclosures and financial reports given to them. The code of ethics include “the promotion of honest and ethical conduct, requiring disclosure on the codes that apply to senior financial officers, and including provisions to encourage whistle blowing” (A Business Ethics Perspective on Sarbanes Oxley and the Organizational Sentencing Guidelines). The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was signed into law from public demand for a reform. Even though there are some criticism about it, the act still stands to prevent and punish corporate fraud and malpractice.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) was passed by U.S congress in 2002 to protect investors from fraudulent accounting activities by corporations. Whether the organization is big or small, the act mandates strict reforms to improve financial disclosures from corporations, helping to prevent accounting fraud. It is a federal law that established new and expanded requirements for all U.S. public company boards, management, public accounting firm's, as well as privately held companies. SOX requires top management individually certify the accuracy of financial information, and includes penalties for fraudulent financial activity. The bill was enacted in response to a large number of major corporate and accounting scandals the cost of investors

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was created by Congress in response to financial scandals. There were several incidents which contributed to the need for legislature such as SOX. For purposes of brevity, the focus here will be on two of the largest financial scandals leading up to the passage of SOX, which are of those of Enron and WorldCom.

Congress established the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which is otherwise called the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act, in the beginning of corporate and accounting scandals that prompted liquidations, serious stock misfortunes, and a loss of trust in stocks (Batten, 2010). The demonstration forces new obligations on corporate administration and criminal authorizes on those supervisors who spurn the law, and it

Corporations around the world have exhibited ethical business practices. However, some corporations gave into unethical business practices such as fraud, dishonesty, and scams. One particular dishonest act that remained common amongst companies such as Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco was the fabrication of financial statements. These companies were reporting false information on their financial statements so that it would appear that the companies were making profits. However, those companies were actually losing money instead. Because of these companies’ actions, the call to have American businesses to be regulated under new rules served as a very important need. In 2002, Paul Sarbanes from the Senate and Michael G. Oxley from the House of Representatives created what is now known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

Prior to 2002, financial statement reporting for publically traded companies within the United States was overseen with far less oversight in comparison to current reporting standards and procedures. Appropriate financial reporting is merely one element that was not occurring prior to 2002. An element of corporate dishonesty and deception existed within some the largest publically traded companies and this idea of deceitfulness was perpetuated by the executive staff of the businesses. Enron’s financial disintegration became the facilitator for the need of more rigid financial oversight, but they were not the only company that added to the idea of corporate fraud.

Prior to 2002, there was very little oversight of accounting procedures. Auditors were not always independent and corporate government procedures and disclosure provisions were inadequate. Sometimes, executive compensation was tied to the stock of the company which created an incentive to manipulate the stock price by using fraudulent accounting practices to make it look like companies were making more money than they actually were. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was introduced because of the collapse of several major corporations due to these practices. This paper will

The authors note that in general Sarbanes-Oxley has succeeded in its mandate. There have not been, for example, any of the corporate accounting scandals of the Enron or Worldcom type that occurred before the law came into effect. There have been scandals in business, and failures, but none fell under the auspices of Sarbanes-Oxley. The failures of AIG and Lehman Brothers did not occur because of accounting scandals but rather because of business failures of other types. The Bernie Madoff scandal has also been cited by some SOX opponents, but that did not occur with a public company and was therefore not under the auspices of SOX either.

Following these series of failures, SOX was enacted to restore investor’s confidence which was rattled and to prevent accounting frauds in the future with improved corporate governance and accountability which all public companies must comply. SOX was named after Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael G. Oxley, who were the main drafters of the Act. It was approved by the House of Representatives and signed into law by the President George W. Bush on July 30, 2003. Lack of ethics and integrity seem to be the key factors that caused accounting fraud. SOX revised the framework for the public accounting and auditing profession, provided guidance for better corporate governance and created regulations to define how public companies are to comply with the law. Although many have questioned whether SOX is actually effective to prevent frauds like Enron and WorldCom in future, it is considered to be the most extensive legislation related to publicly- traded companies and external independent auditors since the 1930s. President Bush called it “the most far reaching reforms of American Business Practices since the time of Franklin Roosevelt” (BUMILLER, 2002). The purpose of this paper is to determine whether or not Sarbanes Oxley’s regulations will be effective in preventing another financial statement fraud like Enron and WorldCom.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was put into legislation on July 30, 2002 by President George W. Bush, for the purpose of regulating the financial practices and a host of other corporate and securities issues for all publically traded organizations. “Essentially, it was an attempt to impose tighter controls on the financial reporting, to try and provide more transparency in financial reporting, and to hold people accountable in the financial reporting.” (Dewey, 2012). It’s important to note that the SOX law applies to all companies registered under Section 12 of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. Privately held and non-for profit companies are not impacted by the SOX law, however many have elected to voluntarily comply with the legislation. The law was enacted due to several corporate scandals in early 2000-2002; Enron, WorldCom and Tyco to name just a few. The early 2000’s will always be remembered for the deep recession and decline in economic activity, not just in the US, but in the global marketplace as well.

In the early 2000s, corporate financial statement fraud was rampant, as companies such as Enron and WorldCom used shady accounting practices to inflate their revenues and hide losses. This led to the introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the most extensive form of accounting reform legislation ever passed. It had many consequences for publicly traded companies and public accounting firms, some of which were positive, while others were detrimental. One of the detrimental impacts, the cost of compliance, was alleviated at least partially by the introduction of Auditing Standard Five in 2007. This paper will examine the time period leading up to the passage of the act, the different parts of the legislation, the introduction of Auditing Standard Five, and the impact on registrants and auditors.

Sarbanes Oxley (also known as SOX) is legislation passed by the United States Congress in 2002, in the wake of a number of major corporate accounting scandals. Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and others cost investors billions when their stock prices collapsed. As a result of SOX, top management must separately certify the accuracy of financial Furthermore, consequences for fraudulent financial activity are much more severe. Also, SOX intensified the management role of boards of directors and the independence of the external auditors who review the accuracy of corporate financial statements. The primary changes caused the formation of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the assessment of personal liability to auditors, executives and board members and creation of the Section 404, which recognized internal control events that had not existed before the legislation.