...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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...What is the purpose of the Sarbanes Oxley Act? LIB100, Class Section Quincy Leon Professor Kahn Fall 2011 Topic: What is the purpose of the Sarbanes Oxley Act? Thesis statement: Patients who suffer from depression often think that they are faced with two treatment options. They can participate in psychotherapy and/or they can take a regimen of psychotropic medication. It is important for mental health practitioners to impress upon their patients that 30 minutes of moderate exercise performed 4 times a week can also lift their mood and play a role in their recovery. Search strategy and evaluation of resources: I began my research on the purpose of the Sarbanes Oxley act by searching the ASA library online catalog for books that spoke mainly about that topic. I chose the ASA library because it is a college library; it only contains books or articles that are meant for research. Also, the library contains credible sources necessary for a research project. I chose two books to use for my research. The first being Sarbanes-Oxley act of 2002: Law and Explanation. I chose this book because it is considered to be an authoritative source which contains the necessary background information one would need at the commencement of a research project. The next book I chose was Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002: Conference Report. I chose this book it too spoke primarily about the SOX Act. This report is authoritative because it is written by the United...
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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 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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...Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002 Aracheal Ventress Accounting 561 February 3, 2014 Professor Myrtle Clark Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002 Corporation scandals, such as Enron, initiated the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002 also known as SOX. Prior to its existence, the public became aware of Enron’s weak internal control, misleading earnings reports, and conflict of interests between executives and their chief auditor.Misleading information provided in false earnings reports allowed Shareholders and employees to continue to investing in Enron. Misappropriation of funds invested and eventually Enron filed bankruptcy in 2001. The fall of Enron had an impact that caused loss of jobs for thousands, the loss of retirement funds for all employees and no returns for their investors. The unethical practices of Enron caused the public to lose trust in the financial markets. This prompted a written legislative act addressing compliance in fair and accurate reporting of financial disclosures of corporations. In 2002, Paul Sarbanes, a Democratic Senator from Maryland, and Michael Garver Oxley, a Republican Congressman from Ohio serving in the House of Representatives, each introduced bills in their respective bodies that would result in legislation that would later bare their name. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 passed both houses by overwhelming margins; 423 to 3 in the House and 99 to 0 in the Senate. On July 30, 2002, President George W. Bush signed it into law (sox-online, 2012)...
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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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...The Ineffectiveness of the Sarbanes Oxley Act In Corporate Management and Accounting In the early 1990s, a young company named Enron was quickly moving up Fortune magazine’s chart of “America’s Most Innovative Company.” As the corporate world began to herald Enron as the next global leader in business, a dark secret loomed on the horizon of this great energy company. Aggressive entrepreneurs eager to push the company’s stock price higher and a series of fraudulent accounting procedures involving special purpose entities were about to be exposed. In early 2002, the United States Justice Department announced its intent to pursue a criminal investigation into the once mighty company, Enron. After the gross negligence of accounting procedures were discovered at Enron, Congress passed the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002. While this legislation was seen by many as the rules to keep large corporations from destroying investors and employees, it also created unnecessary confusion and unbearable costs for American businesses. Perhaps one of the most confusing pieces of the Sarbanes Oxley Act is §404, regarding “the responsibility of management for establishing and maintaining an adequate internal control structure and procedures for financial reporting.” (Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002) While this sounds like good legislation, the cost of compliance with §404 varies greatly among public companies, depending on the size of their business. Joseph Piche, founder and CEO of Eikos, Inc., testified...
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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 Joslin Cuthbertson Hampton University Abstract The Sarbanes-Oxley Act came into effect in July 2002 and introduced major changes to the guidelines of corporate authority and financial practice. It is named after Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley, who were its main originators. The Sarbanes Oxley Act set a number of non-negotiable deadlines for publically traded companies to comply to. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is arranged into eleven titles. As far as compliance is concerned, the most important section within these eleven titles is usually considered to be Section 404, which deals with internal controls. Since 2002, there has been a lot of debate about whether the act has positively or negatively affected corporate America. In this paper I have discussed the opinions of both sides of the argument. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is a bill passed by Congress in 2002 after several corporations took actions that caused their companies to fail. These companies include Enron and WorldCom. As a result of these actions, stockholders lost confidence in the financial system. The intent of the bill is to protect investors of corporations by making the corporations accountable for any unacceptable accounting errors and practices. The Act is named after its main proponents, Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley. The Acts real name is the Public...
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...Sarbanes-Oxley Act Financial Management Miriacle K. Black Belhaven University Abstract In 2002 an Act by the name of Sarbanes-Oxley was implemented following the bankruptcy of Enron, an American energy, commodities, and Service Company that was based out of Houston, Texas. This paper will discuss and describe the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; also it will answer such questions as: Why was the Sarbanes-Oxley Act enacted? What was the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act? Also, my opinion of whether or not I thing this Act will somehow stop accounting practices. This Act is surely a case of one bad apple spoils a bunch. Sarbanes-Oxley Act The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is a case of one bad apple spoiling a bunch. What is meant by this statement is because of one company’s selfishness and greed; a lot of other companies now have different hoops to jump and straight lines to walk, to keep the same thing from happening again. Not to say outright that the Act is a bad thing because it’s not. When companies go bankrupt that particular company is not the only thing that is affected, these companies have investors and stockholders and they too are affected. This act will allow for such companies and their employers to stay on the straight and narrow. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was enacted in 2002 following the bankruptcy of Enron, an energy trade company out of Houston, Texas. According to lawyershop.com, Enron kept the fact that they were billions of dollars in debt from its shareholders (Shaw, 2008)...
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...Sarbanes Oxley Act has had many positive impacts on American businesses, but has also had its share of criticism. As a result of the implementation of the Sarbanes Oxley Act, firms now produce financial information that is more transparent and holds some form of accountability. One of the greatest benefits of the Sarbanes Oxley Act is that investors are more confident because they now have access to more accurate financial statements and are able to assess the financial strength and stability of publicly traded companies when making investment decisions. American businesses now have stronger corporate governance as companies are more focused on being compliant and honest in their business practices. Sarbanes Oxley has helped to reduce the number of fraudulent financial / accounting activities in publicly traded companies and has also forced companies to have stronger internal controls, which results in more reliable and accurate financial statements. Although Sarbanes Oxley has had a number of positive results on American businesses and investors, several firms resent the act and its impact on their companies. Many executives and managers of such companies complain about the costs associated with being in compliance with the act. These additional costs include time and expenses for external auditors, legal fees, additional employees / compensation fees, fines for non-compliance, etc. They often argue that the cost of compliance exceeds the benefits of the act, which is pointless...
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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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...Two provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act: Sarbanes–Oxley Section 302: This section deals with disclosure controls. Under Sarbanes–Oxley, two separate sections came into effect, one civil (Section 302) and the other criminal (Section 906). Section 302 of the Act mandates a set of internal procedures designed to ensure accurate financial disclosure. The signing officers must certify that they are responsible for establishing and maintaining internal controls and have designed such internal controls to ensure that material information relating to the company and its consolidated subsidiaries is made known to such officers by others within those entities, particularly during the period in which the periodic reports are being prepared. Sarbanes-Oxley Section 401: This section deals with disclosures in periodic reports which include off-balance sheet items. Sarbanes-Oxley required the disclosure of all material off-balance sheet items. It also required an SEC study and report to better understand the extent of usage of such instruments and whether accounting principles adequately addressed these instruments. Critics argued the SEC did not take adequate steps to regulate and monitor this activity. SOX has improved investor confidence and has facilitated more accurate and reliable financial statements. The CEO and CFO are now required to unequivocally take ownership for their financial statements under Section 302, which was not the case prior to SOX. Further, auditor conflicts...
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...Ian Pinkerton ACC 497 Mr. Patten 11/9/2014 Has Sarbanes-Oxley been Successful? The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was enacted on July 30th, 2002. The bill is comprised of eleven different sections that cover quite a large amount of topics. Prior to the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, there were several highly controversial and heavily scrutinized cases of corporate fraud that included the infamous Enron, Tyco, and WorldCom. These scandals cost investors billions of dollars when the share prices of these companies collapsed after the cases were filed. These cases of fraud indicated to both the public and the government that there was not enough regulation over financial statements of publically traded companies specifically. It focused specifically on publically traded companies to contain the fallout of lost investor’s money when these frauds come to light and the stock prices plummet. In order to fix these problems Congress rushed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act through both the House and Senate. This Act was one of the largest pieces of financial information legislation since the securities acts of 1933 and 1934 (Sweeney 2012). The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has faced quite a lot of criticism, but it has been quite successful. SOX legislation has for most come at rather high regulatory costs. The average annual compliance costs were $2.9 million prior to 2007 and $2.3 million since then (Singer & You 2011, pg 557). While it’s completely understandable why that large of a bill would...
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