...Article Review: Sarbanes – Oxley Act LAW/421 August 20, 2012 Jane Schneider Sarbanes – Oxley Act of 2002 Modern businesses have their full share of ethical dilemmas. With law and ethics, business environments can be equipped with tools to successfully handle ethical situations. Without legal and ethical discipline, a business can deteriorate in the blink of an eye. Because of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, businesses can be controlled on the way they conduct business through the instruction of auditing, corporate governance, and financial reporting. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act came about due to the issues with Enron. Enron was an organization founded based on two companies: InterNorth and Houston Natural Gas. Enron grew rapidly in the United States and maintained strong globally. Even through Enron progressed, the executives became greedy. Days before Enron announced a $618 million loss over the third quarter, the company’s accountants told workers to destroy all audit material and keep the basic work documents. Because of this, workers suing Enron for lost retirement savings were denied all of the backup paperwork to support their claims against Enron. Enron’s accounting firm reminded employees of the document destruction process prior to the subpoenas issued by the Security and Exchange Commission. There is speculation that documents were being destroyed even after the subpoenas were issued. Accounting firms are to use a retention policy, and any intentional destruction...
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...Sarbanes Oxley Act Article Review Amber Means LAW 421 November 24, 2014 Jane Schneider Sarbanes Oxley Act Article Review Corporate fraud and mismanagement scandals in publically held companies, along with the public outcry for stricter regulations and accountability in early 2000 led to the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX Act) of 2002. The primary purpose of the SOX Act is to overhaul the structure of corporate governance regulatory structure and impose stricter regulation and controls on the auditing, financial reporting and internal corporate governance procedures of corporations (Melvin, 2011). Significant portions of the Act are aimed towards creating solutions for specific failures in the auditing and accounting procedures of publically held companies. The Act also increased the jurisdiction, enforcement alternatives and enforcement budget of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) substantially (Melvin, 2011). The SOX Act of 2002 was implemented to effectively end corruption within publically held companies and restore the faith of investors in the corporate system, but how well is it working? The following is summary of the article “Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002 (SOX) – 10 years later” which discusses the intentions of the SOX Act, the corruption and legislative environment which led to its implementation, and how its implementation has affected corporations and investors. History of legislation Prior to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002, the Securities...
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...A Primer on Sarbanes-Oxley The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was declared a law in 2002 (Orin, 2008). The primary purpose of this new law was to convey meaning to restoring faith in corporate America’s financial endeavors (Orin, 2008). The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was meant to aid and protect investors, who suffered extreme losses because of corporations having poor financial performances, which was the case before the law was enacted (Orin, 2008). Distinctively, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was meant to concentrate on accounting fraudulence by holding corporations accountable for disclosing accurate and reliable financial records. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was also meant to ensure corporate executive leadership acted ethically throughout daily business (Orin, 2008). Assess the Effectiveness of SOX Legislations Key Ethical Components of the SOX To efficiently and effectively implement the Sarbanes-Oxley Act corporations need to broaden their views and focus on the greater purpose of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Beasley and Hermanson (2009) believe to accomplish this corporate leadership need to focus on the following: • Value the purpose of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. • Comprehend the effect of fraudulence behavior. • Concentrate on ethical attitudes pertaining to rationalizing fraudulence behavior. • Making the Sarbanes Oxley Act the foundation to compliance to improve governance and control. • Investigate and implement enterprise risk management (para 5). Value...
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...“Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act and its impact on corporate America” In order to understand why the Sarbanes-Oxley Act came to be, it’s important to acknowledge some of the mistakes made by some companies that led to the creation of this Act. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was originally enacted in the wake of the Enron scandal, but then pushed to congress after a series of high-profile financial scandals followed Enron, including WorldCom and Tyco that rattled investor confidence and the level of confidence that the public held in corporate America (Rouse). Enron Corporation was one of the largest energy companies in the world, marketing primarily electricity and natural gas but also provided financial risk management for its clients. Enron’s demise began in 1997 when it bought out a partner’s stake in a company (JEDI) and in turn sold that stake to another company (ChewCo) which was created, owned, and operated by Enron (Rouse). This began the multi-layered strategy of transactions that allowed the company to hide debts, report inaccurate accounting errors, making the company appear much stronger and financially sound than it was in reality (Rouse). The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was created in 2002 by Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley and signed off by President Busch and introduced and enforced major changes to the regulation of corporate governance and financial practice. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is arranged into eleven 'titles' (www.soxlaw.com). As far as compliance is...
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...Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 U.S. Senator Paul Sarbnes of Maryland and U.S. Representative Michael Oxley of Ohio followed a series of corporate failures, which inacted the SOX Act based on Enron’s bankruptcy and other key organizations such as Worldcom, Tyco, Xerox, and Adelphia who were among the United States organizations executives in the headlines for misdemeanors and multi-billion dollar reassertions," (Dembinski, Lager, Cornford, Bonvin, 2005). The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, (SOX) was incorporated to strengthen the internal improvements and oversight of corporate control. The primary purpose is to shield and protect shareholders from fradualent activities within the public sector and the stock market. The table below provides a list of a few provisions implemented in SOX Act. Section 302 | Section 401 | Section 404 | Section 409 | Section 802 | Requires that corporate administration confirm that they have assessed the financial reports. | Requires that financial reports include disclosure about any applicable off-balance sheet responsibilities that may exist. | Requires organizations to state whether or not the business's internal mechanism technique are sufficient and operative. | Requires administration to update the public of important budgetary matters when they occur, instead of waiting until the annual or quarterly report. | Imposes penalties for abuses of the SOX rules, which could lead to fines or some jail time. | A description...
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...The Sarbanes-Oxley Act 1. Analyze the new or enhanced standards for all U.S. public company boards, managements, and public accounting firms that the SOX required. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of two thousand two was an important act for business and investors. Before the act many companies were doing unethical and illegal business practices. Accounting officers were not being held accountable for their actions that effect investors and stocks. This act was introduced to keep accounting information honest and without untrue statements or omissions. The legislation was enforced in 2002 to regulate financial practice and corporate governance. The act was named after Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley it contains eleven titles. Numerous inventors and business owners sensed that these disingenuous documents were the consequence of business carelessness in addition to deficient in of appropriate examination of fiscal proceedings by qualified auditors. 2. Examine why the new enhanced standards are necessary. I believe that the new enhanced standards are necessary. The new standards hold officers accountable for their actions and pertain to “Corporate Responsibility for Financial Reports”. In Section three hundred two of the act of periodic statutory financial reports have to include certifications assigning officer or officers have reviewed the report. The report does not contain any untrue statements or material omission...
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...What exactly is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act? Who does it protect? Who benefits from SOX most? I will discuss what the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) is its key components, and its primary objective. Also, I will discuss the criticisms surrounding the SOX act. Why it is important to enforce the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Finally, I will discuss if the SOX has achieved its goals. The main purpose of Sarbanes Oxley Act is to ensure that the corporate sector works with transparency and provides full disclosure of information as and when required (Bing, 2007). This basically means that corporations must keep good records of what goes on in their business, not just for their benefit, but just in case of an audit, then they’ll have all their transactions ready to be reviewed and to keep future corporate scandals down. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed by Congress on July 30, 2002. The law forced public companies to spend much more money having their books thoroughly audited, and it increased the penalties for executives who defrauded investors. Since the bill's passage and implementation, nervous investors who had yanked trillions of dollars from the market have returned (Farrell, 2007). The men behind the Sarbanes-Oxley Act consist of U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, New York Stock Exchange CEO John Thain and former AIG chief Maurice "Hank" Greenberg. Even though their voices my appear to be isolated, Charles Niemeier a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board...
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...Effects Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act Of 2002 On Financial Statements ACC/291 10/07/12 It’s inevitable for a company to have down periods when they are not making a profit and sometimes even spending more than they are bringing in. Companies that are publically traded are governed and sanctioned more than sole proprietorships (SP) and Limited Liability Companies (LLC). When the company is a sole proprietorship or a limited liability company government and regulations are basically reviewed and enforced internally. That’s a privileged that these types of organizations have. Owners may sometime not handle finances appropriately or may not have checks and balances in place from any outside sources to make sure everything is handled correctly. Organizations of any other sort than SP’s and LLC’s are under the scrutiny of The Sarbanes Oxley Act. Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was basically established to deal with unethical behavior and corporate social responsibility issues. This law was established to enforce accounting auditing and to protect investors. Companies like Enron and WorldCom scandals made it imperative for Congress to pass such a law to protect Investors, Corporation Employees, etc. This Act was not favored by a lot of organizations. Companies had to create procedures to meet what SOX require and it’s compliance. Procedures were required to be established to enforce the checks and balances...
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...OF THE SARBANES OXLEY ACT BY TREVOR GARRETT 02/25/2011 Abstract Enron Corporation was one of the largest energy trading, natural gas and Utilities Company in the world that was based in Huston, Texas. The downfall of Enron is one of the most infamous and shocking events in the financial world, and its reverberations were felt around the globe. Prior to its collapse in 2001, Enron was one of the leading companies in the U.S and considered among top 10 admired corporations and most desired places to work at. Its revenues made up US $139 to $184 billion, assets equaled $62 to $82 billion, and the number of employees reached more than 30,000 people in 20 countries around the world. While on the surface it seemed like the perfect Corporation, internally it had highly decentralized financial control and decision-making structure, which made it practically impossible to get coherent and clear view on corporations' activities and operations. Enron manipulated its books and assets to help it report steady profit growth to Stock Exchanges and Credit-rating agencies. Investors generally are not willing to pay as much for the stock of a volatile trading operation, and this gave rise to manipulations. This paper briefly describes the legal and ethical breaches by Enron, the key factors and events that led to its collapse and the passing of the Sarbanes Oxley Act as a consequence of such a catastrophe. The paper also discusses the key components of the Sarbanes Oxley Act and...
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...Effects of Unethical Behavior Article Analysis Effects of Unethical Behavior Article Analysis Sarbanes Oxley Act was established in 2002, mandating organizations large or small to follow. “The Sarbanes Oxley Act has introduced major changes to the regulation of financial practice and corporate governance” (Sarbanes-Oxley Essential Information, 2012). The act has also changed the way financial statements have to be reported. In a Post Sarbanes Oxley Era companies need to adapt to become more relational to stay successful. The Sarbanes Oxley Act has changed the reporting of financial statements by making organizations include an internal control report. The reason for this report is for the purpose of “showing that not only the company’s financial data is accurate, but that the company has confidence in them because adequate controls are in place to safeguard financial data” (Sarbanes-Oxley Essential Information, 2012). Also at the year-end financial reports need to have an assessment of how effective the internal controls are in which the issuer’s auditing firm attest to the assessment. This happens after the auditing firm reviews the “controls, policies, and procedures during a Section 40/40 audit, which is conducted with a traditional financial audit” (Sarbanes-Oxley Essential Information, 2012). For firms to become more relational in a Post Sarbanes Oxley Era, they need to redefine the roles of each audit professional and retrain their employees to incorporate...
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...Sarbanes-Oxley Gabriel Mould ACC561 October 13, 2015 Dr. Janet Forney Sarbanes-Oxley Aspects of the Regulatory Environment In 2001, one of the largest corporate scandals unraveled as Enron/Andersen was accused of corporate fraud. Not long after were companies such as ImClone and Global Crossing were deemed under the same fraudulent activities and congress did very little in correcting the situations. (Larry Bumgardner, 2003) Several committees did hold hearings and a number of bills were introduced to address corporate misconduct. However, the differences between the Senate under Democratic control at the time, and the House of Representatives and White House, under Republican control, on how to address the problems were so great that no legislation appeared imminent. (Larry Bumgardner, 2003) There was a second wave of scandals that involved WorldCom and Adelphia in the summer of 2002. (Larry Bumgardner, 2003) WorldCom had $107 billion in assets but after filing in the Southern District of New York was crushed by their debt of $41 billion. WorldCom’s bankruptcy is the largest in United States history making Enron seem irrelevant. (Beltran, 2002) Three founding members and two other company executives of Adelphia were arrested on charges of looting the nation’s sixth-largest cable-television company on a massive scale. Congress along with the White House began to notice a steady decrease in the stock market which led them to call for action against these scandals...
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...THE SARBANES OXLEY ACT of 2002 The Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 was signed into law after a series of corporate financial scandals affected companies such as Enron, WorldCom, and Arthur Anderson. It provides a solid set of government rules that will discourage and punish corporate and accounting fraud and corruption by imposing severe penalties for wrongdoers, while protecting the interest of workers and shareholders. Acknowledged as the most significant change to securities laws since 1934, the Sarbanes Oxley Act, a new penal law, 18 U.S.C. $1348, became effective on July 30, 2002. The Act contains reforms for issuers of publicly traded securities, corporate board members, auditors, and lawyers. It was designed to improve the quality of financial reporting, accounting services, and independent audits (Zameeruddin, 2005). The provisions of the act apply to U.S. companies that are required to file annual reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as well as foreign companies that that are listed in the U.S. or are obligated to report to the SEC periodically. Title I of the Sarbanes Oxley Act stipulates that a new Public Company Accounting Oversight Board will be appointed and overseen by the SEC. The Board, which is made up of five full-time members, will oversee and investigate the audits and auditors of public companies and penalize for violations of laws, regulations, and rules. It is funded by fees to be paid by all public companies...
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...Running head: THE SARBANES-OXLEY ACT: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 1 The Sarbanes-Oxley Act Matthew Gurniak University of Maryland University College Author Note This paper was prepared for AMBA 630, Section 9046, taught by Professor Wylie. Introduction American investors lost confidence in the American market, as a result of several large companies falsifying financial statements. In response to this matter, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in the year of 2002 (Rehbein, 2010, p.90). Though there are many benefits that have come out of SOX, many argue that there are several issues that should be addressed. As a team we will discuss the main advantages and disadvantages of the act, the effect the act has had on CEO’s and CFO’s of publicly held companies, how the act has affected the function of internal controls within organizations, and what changes should be made to act. What Are the Main Advantages and Disadvantages of SOX? The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) has many advantages. There are repeated ethical scandals in business and the majority of the time “ethics and the law run parallel” to each other (Livingstone, 2009, P. 4). The SOX is the first step in holding companies accountable and is a model for accounting practice reform. The SOX controls auditors’ independence and responsibility by fighting business fraud and improving corporate governance. Tsui (2009) stated that “the SOX increases personal liabilities of senior management...
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...Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 Topics Covered: How SOX affects the following: CEO’s and CFO’s of Public Companies Outside Independent Audit Firms SOX section 404 on Internal Control The Main Advantages and Disadvantages of SOX Executive Summary The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) was intended to create more transparency in financial reporting and to combat the perceived inflation of CEO compensation. To do this, the act required that a board of directors be financially independent from the CEO and have no familial ties. It also required the CEO and CFO to personally sign all quarterly and annual reports submitted to the SEC and provided for criminal penalties if this was not done. Our research indicates that Sarbanes-Oxley has created more transparency in the system, but it has actually had the opposite effect than was intended with regards to CEO compensation. The research indicates that CEO compensation has increased for many companies post-Sarbanes-Oxley. Due in large part to the Enron scandal, SOX needed to address outside independent audit firms to improve the accuracy of financial reports disclosed by publicly traded companies. These financial reports are used by investors, bankers and interested consumers to determine how well an organization is doing and provide investors with vital information about a company’s performance. This paper will discuss the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and how the SOX law affects outside independent audit firms. Next we review...
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...The Effects of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act There have been widespread reactions to corporate scandals which have become seemingly common in corporate America. Government reaction to these unethical corporate and accounting scandals has led to regulation and intervention. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is seen as a response to the lack of corporate governance present in many corporations. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002 and commonly called Sarbanes-Oxley, Sarbox, or SOX. This United States federal law was enacted on July 30, 2002 in response to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals, including those affecting Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems, and WorldCom. The act is administered by the Securities and Exchange Commission. It sets deadlines for compliance and publishes rules on requirements. The Act contains 11 titles; these describe specific mandates and requirements for financial reporting. Moreover, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act introduced major changes to the regulation of financial practice and corporate governance. It is seen as the most important legislation affecting corporate financial reporting enacted in the United States since the 1930s” (Li, 1). It is extremely essential in to ensure protect to shareholders and the general public from accounting errors and fraudulent practices in an enterprise. However, with government regulation and intervention one must...
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