The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 was implemented to deter fraudulent activities amongst companies by monitoring and auditing financial activities as well as set up internal controls to aid in the safeguard of company funds and investor’s interest. SOX also regulates the non-audit tax services (NATS) that can be performed by an auditing firm. SOX was passed by Congress in 2002 in an attempt to address the unethical behaviors of corporate firms such as Enron, WorldCom, Sunbeam, and others (Raabe, Whittenburg, Sanders, & Sawyers, 2015). Raabe et al. (2015) continues explaining that SOX was created in response to the inadequacies

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

Based on the video "Bigger Than Enron," discuss at least five features of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) that are the result of events related to corporate fraud.

On July 30, 2002, The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) was signed into law by President Bush. "The Act mandated some reforms to enhance corporate responsibility, enhance financial disclosures and combat corporate and accounting fraud" (SEC.Gov. 2013 P. 1). The SOX Act also created the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) in response to numerous failures of the profession to fulfill its trusted role; to oversee the activities of the auditing profession (SEC.Gov, 2013. The auditing of financial statements is required for the protection of public investors; however the question that arises is whether or not all PCAOB members should be taken from the investments communities that use audited financial statements. The remaining of this

The act is an exhaustive piece of legislation that contains eleven major section and some of the most important titles outline requirements on auditor independence, analyst conflict of interests, corporate responsibility, enhanced financial disclosures, internal controls assessment, and corporate fraud accountability (Bainbridge, 2007). One of the main benefits of the legislation is to establish auditor independence requirements and rules for the prevention of conflicts of interest in particular by prohibiting auditing firms from offering other services. Prior to Sarbanes–Oxley, the auditing professionals were self-regulated and the decisions that controlled the industry, such as violation of ethical standards, were made largely by auditors themselves (Verschoor, 2012). In order to prevent conflict of interests, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act grants the PCAOB authority to oversee and regulate auditing firms, conduct investigations, and impose disciplinary sanctions against accounting firms (McDonough, 2004). Another provision of the Act is requiring senior executives to be personally accountable and responsible for the financial information reports by certifying that the information is correct.(Welch, 2006). A byproduct of the law implementation is a significant quality improvement on accounting practices;

I think that the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) has been feasible in managing tricky financial reporting from major corporations. It has a much lower influence on the misappropriation of benefits. No law or Act have the ability to cover all human predisposition to endeavor relationships with good offense. The law made it harder to quote out of context the association's cash related affairs and made the results more extraordinary (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2013). SOX have increased auditor’s vigilance and tightened management's responsibility for reporting misappropriating assets (Church & Shefchik, 2012). Here are two reasons I trust SOX was successful. First, this Act was powerful enough to cause chief executives to consider money

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.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act. An act passed by U.S. Congress in 2002 to protect investors and the general public from the possibility of accounting errors and fraudulent practices by corporations. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), named after U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes and U.S. Representative Michael G. Oxley, which contains eleven sections, mandated strict reforms to improve financial disclosures and prevent accounting fraud. The eleven sections of the bill cover responsibilities of a public corporation’s board of directors, adds criminal penalties for certain misconduct, and also requires the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to create regulations to define how public corporations are to comply with the law. SOX other main purpose is also

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

Congress enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act of 2002 to restore investor confidence by requiring public companies to strengthen corporate governance through several mechanisms, including enhanced disclosure on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting (ICFR). As claimed by regulators, the disclosures on the effectiveness of ICFR are aimed at improving the quality of financial reporting, which would, in turn, reduce the information asymmetry for investors in U.S. capital markets” (Donaldson). Sarbanes- Oxley named after its creators, Senator Paul Sarbanes, D-Md and Congressman Michael Oxley, R-Ohio. Enacted in 2002 with the purpose to crack down on corporate fraud. The implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley led to the creation of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) to oversee the accounting industry. It was created to eliminate corporate fraud, and it put in place a ban on company loans to executives while also giving job protection to whistleblowers. Before SOX was put into place the accounts were a self-regulated profession, such as medical professionals and lawyers. This is what led to the fraudulent actions of major institutions, people can be greedy, and they need checks and balances to ensure the fidelity of the firm. There are criminal enhanced penalties for corporate fraud and related misdeeds, this brings justice to the sector as well as working as a deterrent for additional immoral

Due too many fraudulent activities in companies such as Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco International consumers became aware that something needed to change. As a result, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). SOX gave the public and investors a renewed confidence and strengthen corporate governance to insure that companies are reporting their financial information correctly and accurately.

In 2001 and 2002 the world was taken by surprise by the biggest accounting scandals to ever occur. Enron, Tyco, and WorldCom threw investors, business owners, and employees into a world of panic after they committed fraud and stole millions of dollars. After the scandals became public, investors turned to The United States Congress to ensure nothing of this nature would ever happen again. Therefore, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) to help and restore investors’ confidence. The SOX was established to hold companies more accountable for financial reporting and ensuring companies had the proper internal control procedures in place to prevent an accounting scandal from happening.

The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are one example of this, adopted in 1989 by the International Accounting Standards Board. Many of these were previously known as International Accounting Standards (IAS) issued between 1973 and 2001. However, on April 1, 2001, the IASB took over the responsibility for setting new standards to establish a framework for the preparation and presentation of financial standards. This is done, broadly, to reflect true and accurate views of the organization regardless of the country of preparation (IASB 2012).

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are a set of accounting standards that are developed by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). This accounting standard is followed by approximately 130 countries as propagated by IASB. IASB is an independent accounting setting body that is based in London. It consist of 14 voters from multiple countries, including United States. Another accounting standard that is being followed is USGAAP that was promulgated by International Accounting Standard Committee (IASC). There has been a serious project going on for the convergence between IFRS and USGAAP from the very beginning of formulation of IFRS in 2001.

Though IASC worked hard to achieve a global accounting standard, it failed due to various factors. One of the main factor was that “A standard that is being accepted by one authority should also be accepted by other authority as well.” But IASC failed in this factor since these standards were not accepted by other leading jurisdiction.