The Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 Essay example

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.

Sarbanes-Oxley was put in place after accounting scandals left many investors questioning whether corporation’s financial reporting could be trusted enough to invest in. The ability to report pretty much anything in their financial statements left those investing in a vulnerable position. The new laws that governing accounting procedures and financial reporting have made investors more likely to invest knowing that the figures that they are basing their investment on closer to the truth of the company’s finances. Calling for an outside auditor to validate the financial statements made sure that company’s reported the true actions of the company leaving most feel more secure in their investment.

Anti-fraud programs are now implemented under the Sarbanes-Oxley by all companies registered to conduct business in the United States. Such programs are closely monitored, evaluated and audited annually by the regulatory agencies to ensure and enforce compliance with the law.

The act identifies and assigns accountability to those who knowingly falsify documents and it clearly states the consequences for acting outside the defined standard, relating to corporate governance. Using case studies we will review how the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is helping to standardized a code of conduct and how it has increased the awareness of corporate responsibility. First, we will review the definitions of corporate governance, business ethics and corporate responsibility. Next, we will examine the effectiveness of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, through a case study and identify possible challenges the Sarbanes-Oxley Act may face, as public demand for social responsibility increases. Finally, we will review proactive recommendations for provisions to key titles of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. These provisions will accommodate the growing public demand for ethical and social responsibility.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was devised and designed to protect shareholders, as well as the public, from errors in corporate accounting and fraudulent business practices. All publicly traded companies, no matter their size, are required to comply with the terms of the Act. The Act was not only created to regulate corporate business practices, but also was created with the intention to help gain back the public’s trust in large, publicly traded corporations. The Act helps the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) in regulating companies and making sure these

According to Jennings (2015), the Sarbanes Oxley Act’s purpose is “An Act to protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made pursuant to the securities laws, and for other purposes” (p. 246). This act was enacted because of several major accounting scandals. One company with such a scandal was Enron.

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.

Sarbanes-Oxley Act was a game changer for corporations all across the United States. Prior to Sarbanes-Oxley Act, big name companies such as Enron, Kmart and Tyco were more inclined to have fraudulent activities happen internally. Having all these issues arise during the last decades, Congress was anxious to act and create Sarbanes-Oxley Act with the intentions to protect investors and have strict reforms to deter internal financial frauds from occurring again. Although, this reform has had a great amount of success in achieving its goals, it also has some holes that were not well though out, when it comes to the entirety of it. The main problem with Sarbanes-Oxley is the cost it has on smaller companies, which shifted the power from the investors and into the auditors. (Prince, 2005)

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

On July 30, 2002, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was signed into law by the acting President George W. Bush. The overall purpose of the Act was “to protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made pursuant to the securities laws, and for other purposes.” (SEC, 2013) This Act mandated multiple amendments to improve corporate responsibility, enhance financial disclosures, and combat corporate and accounting fraudulent practices. One requirement of the Act involves a management’s report on internal controls over financial reporting to be included in the annual financial reports of a company. On July 30, 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that CEO Marc Sherman and former CFO Edward L. Cummings of a computer equipment company named QSGI, Inc. are being charged with misrepresenting the state of its internal controls over financial reporting to external auditors and the investing public. Inadequate internal control within the company can be extremely detrimental because investors and lenders rely heavily on financial reports to make decisions. The incorrect records of QSGI enabled the company to maximize loans from their top creditor. This report will show how QSGI’s lack of internal controls hindered their ability to generate revenue and maintain one of the company’s operation centers.

Investors in publically trading companies should be protected from fraud, corruption and the intentional misleading by corporate executives concerning corporate finances. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed on July 30, 2002 for the purpose of protecting investors from the risk of deceitful accounting practices by corporations. This paper discusses the background of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to include the when and why; as well as the intentions and purposes, and the process. It further addresses the arguments for and advantages of the law and the disadvantages. Lastly, this paper will speak to the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley in 2017 and beyond; containing the lawsuits, SOX for Not for profits and foreign countries.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passes in 2002 in response to a handful of large corporate scandals that occurred between the years 2000 to 2002, resulting in the losses of billions of dollars by investors. Enron, Worldcom and Tyco are probably the most well known companies that were involved in these scandals, but there were a number of other companies guilty of such things as well. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed as a way to crackdown on corporations by setting new and improved standards that all United States’ public companies and accounting firms were and are required to abide by. It also works to hold top level executives accountable for the company, and if fraudulent behaviors are discovered then the executives could find themselves in hot water. The punishments for such fraudulence could be as serious as 20 years jail time. (Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 2014). The primary motivation for the act was to prevent future scandals from happening, or at least, make it much more difficult for them to happen. The act was also passed largely to protect the people—the shareholders—from corporations, their executives, and their boards of directors. Critics tend to argue that the act is to complicated, and costs to much to abide by, leading to the United States losing its “competitive edge” in the global marketplace (Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 2014). The Sarbanes-Oxley act, like most things, has its pros and cons. It is costly; studies have shown that this act has cost companies millions of

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was passed by Congress in 2002 as a response to large corporate accounting fraud scandals that resulted from blatant abuse of self-regulation. SOX “is the most far-reaching and significant new federal regulatory statute affecting accountants and governance since the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934” (Wegman, 2007). The main goal of SOX was to protect investors from fraud by strengthening oversight and improving internal control. In the discussion below are the advantages and disadvantages of SOX as well as an opinion regarding how successful, or unsuccessful, the SOX regulations were for the prevention of fraud and protection of small business.

WorldCom is another example of why Sarbanes-Oxley became necessary. In early 2000, WorldCom inflated its earnings by $11 billion, making the fraud the largest corporate fraud in history(Callahan, 2004, p. 102). The debt that WorldCom had at the time when the telecom industry crashed instigated the fraud. Section 404 of SOX gives guidance for capitalization of expenses, which prevents manipulation on financial statements, including extending capitalized expenses over many years, which increases

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or SOX Act, was enacted on July 30, 2002. Since it was enacted that summer it has changed how the public business handle their accounting and auditing. The federal law was made coming off of a number of large corporations involved in scandals. For example a company like Enron was caught in accounting fraud in late 2001 when the company was using false financial statements. Once Enron was caught that had many lawsuits filed against them and had to file for bankruptcy. It was this scandal that played a big part in producing the Sarbanes-Oxley act in 2002.