U.s. Securities And Exchange

1. The SEC is often called the “watchdog” of corporate America. How does it assist in preventing fraud?

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is the US federal agency that holds the primary mandate to enforce federal securities laws and regulations to control the securities industry and the country’s stock exchange and regulation of all activities and organizations including the US electronic securities market. The SEC is committed to promoting a market environment that yields public trust characterized by integrity to attain its mission of protecting investors through maintenance of fair and efficient markets through facilitation of capital information (Basagne, 2010). The SEC financing is a major area of focus since there has been major concern regarding the SEC agency financing and whether they utilize the

The Securities and Exchange Commission has the mission of protecting investors by maintaining fair, orderly and efficient markets. The SEC does this in a number of ways, and firms need to pay attention to these ways in order to ensure SEC compliance. The SEC has enforcement authority over a number of areas related to the nation's capital markets, including insider trading, accounting fraud, and providing false information. The SEC's jurisdiction extends to all securities that are traded publicly. Privately-held companies do not need to register with the SEC (SEC.gov, 2012).

As consultants for Ancher Public Trading (APT), Learning Team A would like to discuss the implications of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) legislation. This memorandum provides a brief history of SOX¡¦s creation, explains the relationship amongst the FASB, SEC and PCAOB, describes the pros and cons of SOX, assesses the impacts of SOX, and lists ethical considerations of SOX.

The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 was passed by congress to strengthen the government’s control of the financial markets. It was preceded by the Securities Exchange Act of 1933 which was enacted during the Great Depression in hopes that the stock market crash of 1929 would not be repeated. The basic difference between the two acts was that the 1933 Act was to govern the original sales of securities by requiring that the issuers, the companies offering the securities, offer up sufficient information about themselves and the securities so that the potential buyers could make informed decisions. The 1934 Act was

In order to ensure effective regulation, the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation contains eleven sections that describe responsibilities of corporate boards (Engel, Hayes, & Wang, 2007). In case these responsibilities are not performed, criminal penalties are applied. The need for stricter financial governance laws created the global trend and such countries as Canada, Germany, France, Australia, Israel, Turkey and others also enacted the same type of regulations (Damianides, 2005). Today, the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation continues to play a fundamental role in the process of protecting the rights of investors and supporting a high level of investment attractiveness of the United States and companies that operate in the country. That is why this particular legislation can be considered as extremely benefiting for the national economy as well as investors.

The effects of the economic market crash of 1929 appeared in how the public sustained severe losses at the hands of securities traders and corporations. With the unmistakable need to restore financial specialist trust in the securities market President Roosevelt pushed for a huge securities regulation and the creation of the Securities Act of 1933 sprouted along with the approval of Congress. Then in a year later in 1934 Congress observed the need to make modifications to the 1933 Act by establishing an independent governmental regulatory body the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC main responsibility came to be to ensure and protect the public against malpractices in the securities and financial markets. As the years passed businesses and technology advances developed and the economic market expanded. With the economy market positive rise many companies needed to keep up and acted upon fraudulent acts in order to stay in the business competition. Companies acted fraudulent by “cooking the books” in recording

Following a number of discovered fraud scandals committed by well-known corporations and in order to restore public confidence in the stock market and trading of securities, the United States congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the year 2002. As a result of the act endorsement by the New York Stock Exchange and the Securities and Exchange Commission, among many other national overseeing committees, a number of rules and regulations were proposed and adopted and that demanded new processes and programs be instilled for ensuring compliance with the requirements of the new law. The new rules and regulations pertaining to the enacted law have a common goal:

In 2008, when the financial crisis occurred, millions of Americans were left without jobs and trillions of dollars of wealth was lost wealth. To make sure the Great Recession would not happen again, President Barrack Obama put into effect the Dodd- Frank Act. With the help of this law, banks will not be able to take irresponsible risks that had negative effects on the American people. Furthermore, with the Volcker Rule embedded into the act, it will ensure that banks are no longer allowed to own, invest, or sponsor hedge funds, private equity funds, or proprietary trading operations for their own profit, unrelated to serving their

In McKay report to Expert Panel on Securities Regulation, it has been 10 years since the discussion about improvement on Canadian Regulatory Framework that indicate changes have to be done. Major and minor obstacles have been debated since which calls for action of changes. In this research I will try to explain how and why changes are needed for securities regulation in Canada in order to bring our capital market compete-able with the rest of the world while in the same time provides high securities for all the stakeholders and backed by the federal government.

The SEC is the administrative agency responsible for regulating the sale of securities under both the 1933 and 1934 acts (Jennings, 2012). The Sec is responsible for issuing injunctions, institute criminal proceeding; bring civil suits and etc. (Jennings, 20104). The SEC gives organizations exemptions such as the Exempt Securities, Exempt Transactions and the offering of securities.

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 mission of FASB is to “improve reporting, focus on traits that are important and reliable and on quality of comparison and consistency, to keep up to date with current trends to reflect modifications in methods used and economic changes, and to improve the common understanding of the purpose and content within financial report” (FASB, 2008). The FASB has an obligation to uphold ethical standards as well as to ensure rules and regulations are followed in the way of financial reporting. The FASB uses input from other agencies when developing or amending standards such as the SEC. Before the Great Crash of 1929, little was done to regulate the securities market (SEC, 2008). Two laws were created to help improve investor confidence: “Securities Act of 1933 and Securities Exchange Act of 1934” (SEC, 2008). According to SEC (2008) the purpose of these laws is to make sure companies display accurate data about their financial accounts, the securities that are sold and involved risks and for the brokers who sell and trade to treat investors with respect by being fair and honest. A more recent law signed in by President Bush in 2002, was the “Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002” (SEC, 2008). This act created changes in improving responsibility, disclosures and

The illegal construction of the Bernie Madoff securities pyramid scheme grew to preposterous proportions from legal, auditing, and regulatory weaknesses of the Securities Exchange Commission, the designated regulatory body of the U.S. financial markets. The required expertise, authority, and relevant penalties needed to deter management from committing ethical breaches lacked substance in the case study of BMIS (Crews 11). Even after the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals that occurred in the early 2000s, the SEC unexplainably revoked provisions created to help avoid fraud. The provision the SEC revoked specifically mandated firms structured like Madoff’s to be audited by accounting firms registered and audited by the Board. By revoking the provision, BMIS was allowed to continue its Ponzi scheme for another half a decade with the aid of utilizing an unregistered, small accounting firm called Freihling & Horowitz (“Madoff’s Jenga”

Securities regulations began in 1933 as a reaction to securities market violations. Securities regulations are a balance of investor and issuer interests. Regulations have typically been enacted in reaction to a violation that affects many, including issuers, investors, and the public. These regulations are not only created in reaction to violations, but the legislature also attempts to take a bigger step in prevention of the same violation reoccurring, as well as preventing a violation that has yet to occur. In other words, securities regulations have always been on a mission to stay one step ahead of securities violations from both issuers and investors. Regulations tend to tighten the rules to ensure investors and issuers do not have