The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has been called by many the “most significant securities legislation” since the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1994 were passed (Arens, 2011). The acts sent sweeping change across all publicly held companies and their audit firms. In fact, the most sweeping and detested part of it all was Section 404, which requires “the auditor of a public company to attest to management’s report on the effectiveness of internal control of financial reporting” (Arens, 2011). While this may not sound like much to someone unfamiliar with financial reporting, the effects were unimaginable for those who were responsible for the financial reports of a company, but a huge sigh of relief for those that had the most to lose at the hands of fraud and illegal activity. Sarbanes-Oxley wasn’t something set into motion for little reason. The emerging scandals of huge corporations such as Enron, Tyco, ImClone, WorldCom, and others in the early years of the 21st century prompted Congress to pass the much needed reform (Bumgardner, 2003). It was something that could have prevented the decline of the stock market, at least at that time, had it already been in place. It was the little things in business, like independence, and the requirement that management attest to their financial statements, that many an outside person took for granted and assumed was taking place within the business they invested in, only to find their worst nightmares were taking place. The Sarbanes-Oxley act took full effect on June 15th 2004, but some companies were given almost a year longer to fully comply (Gunter, 2004). The primary purpose of the act was to combat the ever increasing counts of corporate fraud, mainly by making management responsible for the actions of their organization. This goal also reached out to the auditing firms, by the development of the Public Company Accounting