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 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

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

Depreciation and depletion are two models of computing financial reports. These techniques are used as adjustments when preparing statements of cash flow within the direct or indirect method. This paper will identify and examine the methods of depreciation and depletion, describe the difference between the methods, and compare and contrast depreciation and depletion as well using scholarly references to support the points.

Exceptions can be approved by the Board and are made in cases where the revenue paid for such services contributes less than 5% of revenues paid to the auditing firm. Also, a public accounting firm may provide these non-audit services along with audit services if it is pre-approved by the audit committee of the public company. The audit committee will disclose to investors in periodic reports its decision to approve the performance of non-audit services and audit services by the same accounting firm. This requirement to disclose to investors is likely to inhibit auditing committees from approving the performance of auditing and non-auditing services by the same accounting firm. Other sections outline audit partner rotations, accounting firm reporting procedures, and executive officer independence. Specifically, subsection 206 states that the CEO, Controller, CFO, Chief Accounting Officer or similarly positioned employees cannot have been employed by the company's audit firm for one year prior to the audit.

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.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush to “mandate a number of reforms to enhance corporate responsibility, enhance financial disclosures and combat corporate and accounting fraud” and applies to all public companies in the U.S., large and small (The Laws That Govern the Securities Industry, 2015). The main purpose of Sarbanes-Oxley is to “eliminate false disclosures” and “prevent undisclosed conflicts of interest between corporations and their analysts, auditors, and attorneys and between corporate directors, officers, and shareholders” (Neghina & Riger, 2009). As a whole, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is very complex and affected organizations must do their due diligence to ensure they

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

Numerous scandals broke out in the early 2000s, losing the trust of investors in the public

In the history of the United States, we have experienced numerous financial crisis, where millions have been affected. Some of them include the great depression in 1929, World War II, and recently the financial crisis of 2008. The government has tried to learn from these past events and implement new procedures that would prevent from occurring once again. However, it seems like there is always something new to learn from when these type of events occurs. As such, the government always tries to addressed the issues, but in some instances are praised and in some criticized. Two of the most important legislature that have been passed in order to prevent financial crisis and protect the consumers and the economy of the United States are the

The time frame is early 2002, and the news breaks worldwide. The collapse of corporate giants in America amidst fraud and stock manipulations surfaces. Enron, WorldCom, HealthSouth and later Adelphia are all suspected of the highest level of fraud, accounting manipulation, and unethical behavior. This is a dark time in history of Corporate America. The FBI and the CIA are doing investigations on all of these companies as it relates to unethical account practices, and fraud emerges. Investigations found that Enron, arguably the most well-known, had long shredding sessions of important documents and gross manipulation of stocks and bonds. This company alone caused one of the biggest economic

However, SOX was not the end of the story. 2008 ushered in, what is now

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.

There were many issues in this case but one of the main issues that stood out was the fact that Andersen there was a conflict of interest because Andersen was the auditor and consultant for Enron. There are positive attributes when auditing and consulting at the same time for a client such as building a relationship with the client and promotes business; allows the auditor to become familiar with the clients’ business environment, and reduces the overall cost of the client. However, when a firm audits and consults for their client, the audit/consulting firm works so closely to the client that it makes ethical decisions very difficult to make and the auditors lose objectivity and become partial due to the conflict of interest.