...Phoenix Material Article Review Format Guide MEMORANDUM UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX DATE: November 2, 2015 TO: Jason Johannes FROM: Jasma Phillips RE: The Cost and Benefits of Sarbanes-Oxley/ Forbes ARTICLE SYNOPSIS Sarbanes Oxley Act is “an act passed by U.S. Congress in 2002 to protect investors from the possibility of fraudulent accounting activities by corporations” (“Sarbanes Oxley Act,” 2015). In the review of “The Cost and Benefits of Sarbanes Oxley”, the article started out speaking on how the SOX Act 2002 was designed to protect investors, but many felt as if it was politically motivated. This Act will cause to lose risk takers and competiveness. In today’s business environment, the Sarbanes Oxley Act molded the ethical standpoint to numerous companies. The SOX Act 2002 was designed to keep companies honest. The criminal penalty for this law is a fine and/ or 25 years, but no more than 25 years. The stiff punishment minimized the fraudulent ideas from individuals and firms. The SOX Act 2002 increased the consumer confidence. “We only know that there were benefits in terms of financial reporting and corporate governance; that costs of implementation were higher for smaller companies; and that concerns about risk-taking and investment haven’t come to bear” (“The Cost and Benefit of Sarbanes and Oxley,” 2014, p. 1). This article also goes and talk about the cost and benefits of the Sarbanes Oxley Act 2002. SOX restrictions pushed...
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...Article Review Jennifer Abruscati LAW/421 June 2, 2014 Stacey Mealey Article Review The “High Court Ruling Only Tweaks Sarbanes-Oxley Act” article refers to the Supreme Court ruling in the case Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB. The United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of all of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and it will remain “fully operative as law”, except for one provision that allows the Securities Exchange Committee (SEC) to remove PCAOB members on good cause only. The Supreme Court decided that this provision did not agree with the United States Constitution’s premise of separation of powers, giving authority to the president, not the SEC, to appoint or fire PCAOB members. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed through the U.S. Congress in 2002 after various corporate accounting scandals, such as Enron. Financial statements were falsified to make the corporation look more appealing to investors and for those who invested and believed Enron’s financial position to be true, lost everything. How would investors know if they are making a good investment? Investors were scared to invest in corporations because financial statements were not regulated. The SOX Act was created to protect investors from corporations that use fraudulent accounting activities by enforcing policies and regulations for reporting financial statements and holding companies accountable that used fraudulent methods. Today, the SOX Act is an integral part of all corporations financial...
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...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 Act of 1933...
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...University of Phoenix Material Article Review Format Guide MEMORANDUM UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX DATE: June 2, 2015 TO: James Crossen FROM: Joshua Parrott RE: Niskanen, W. A. (2006). Congress Should Repeal the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Retrieved from http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6624 ARTICLE SYNOPSIS This article was a proposal that really tried to give a good reason for that congress should reverse the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX Act) of 2002. This act is seems like it's a problem because people felt that this act was only in place so government (people in charge of something) could feel better when dealing with some of the issues of popular concern ratherthan resolving the issue. According to Niskanen the SOX act of 2002 is unnecessary, harmful, and inadequate (2006). Punishments under this act included jail time and loss of personal property. This act was viewed as unnecessary because the stock exchange has already talked to/looked atand put into use procedures to deal most problems presented in the SOX act of 2002. Those uses include accounting standards, audits, prosecution for illegal dishonesty related to managing money and reporting procedures. Officials felt that both acts addressed the same issues therefore, congress should deem the SOX act of 2002 unnecessary. The SOX act of 2002 was viewed as harmful because it would “reduce the incentive of corporate executives and directors to seek legal advice” (Niskanen, 2006). It was...
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...Sarbanes- Oxley Article Review Rafael Perez LAW/421 November 7, 2012 David Cory University of Phoenix Material Article Review Format Guide MEMORANDUM UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX DATE: November 7, 2012 TO: David Cory FROM: Rafael Perez RE: Still Debating the Merits of Sarbanes-Oxley, 10 Years Later (Dunn, 2012) ARTICLE SYNOPSIS Sparking the 10-year anniversary of the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 comes some controversy regarding whether the law has proved to be useful, or more of a headache for companies in the United States. Following the huge accounting scandal at the Enron Corporation, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed to change the compliance behind how companies would report their financials. Being enforced by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the SOX helps monitor corporate governance, reporting of financial statements, and accounting controls. Recently some more discussions arose concerning SOX at a new corporate social responsibility event called COMMIT!Forum. Questions surrounding if mandated corporate disclosure has done more good than bad was on the for front. At the conference, Sen. Sarbanes referenced the ENRON scandal and how the market fell by trillions of dollars, including job cuts,...
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...Article Review: Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 Melissa Adams LAW/421 October 16, 2014 Mrs. Lydia Quarles Article Review: Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX Act) of 2002, passed by the United States Congress with the intention of protecting investors from fraudulent activities experienced by business entities or corporations. The enactment of the SOX Act happened at a time when various scandals such as Tyco, Enron, and WorldCom affected the confidence of investors. Indeed, the SOX Act is about regulatory measures that are essential for purposes of protecting the welfare of investors. It is important to note that the business environment in today’s world require the investors to make proper decisions so as to survive in the current competitive global market. The process of making decisions governed by various ethical attributes key among them being integrity, transparency, and accountability. Ethical Decision The SOX Act has the effect of ensuring that investors’ confidence improves through the existence of regulatory provisions that are effective in enhancing ethical standards. “The Supreme Court must determine if the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 violates the Constitution’s separation of powers framework by assigning too much power to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board without providing any residual control power to the President to supervise the Board” (Balasanian & Chu...
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...Introduction The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was signed into law in July 2002 with the goal of improving the scope of declared information and the rectitude of financial statements of U.S. publicly traded companies through increasing their reporting standards, the implementation of independent audits, and the institution of steep penalties for corporate executives who submit fallacious filings (Botes, 2012). These actions provide increased investor assurance of the accuracy of public financial filings through improving their reliability and breadth of disclosure (Botes, 2012). The following report shows how the Act has impacted outside independent audit firms, the accuracy of public company financial statements and the cost of capital for public companies. The report further discusses the main advantages and disadvantages of the law, what changes should be made to it, and why the legislation cannot guarantee the accuracy of public company financial statements despite the attention CEOs and CFOs are paying to the law. Outside Independent Audit Firms Under SOX independent audit firms perform audit reviews of financial filings, in accordance with the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), and under the direction of the Public Company Oversight Accounting Board (PCOAB), in order to assure the disclosure and accuracy of financial filings (Livingstone, 2003; Botes, 2012). Botes notes these reviews provide a uniform platform for sound financial reporting and act as a deterrent of fraudulent...
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...Stacy Strickland Article Review Law/421 Blan Nicholson September 28 The SOX which is the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2202 made an outstanding shift in the environment that was regulatory of companies that was publically traded. The number grew of corporate scandals that was fraud, such as Tyco and Enron of the United States decided to pass a law to lower the future of probability fraud. The law in the United States requires a financial report that is more comprehensive and it have requirements. The law also have penalties that is stricter on the people who do schemes to throw the investors off. I will use the article name “The Law Changed Corporate America”, by Michael Peregrine, which will identify the law and its major effects. Michael Peregrine believed in the SOX. He felt like it would be very successful. The corporate governance structure was the effect that was explained in this article. This structure was very important. He states that the center of direction which was corporate, from the office in the corner and returned it where it was at in the boardroom. This article also verifies that the SOX had created a “balances and checks” system for the governance corporate. The board of directors had to approve certain actions that the executives had to approve certain actions that the executives wanted to make and the executives had to approve the certain actions the board of directors wanted to make. The executive management team and the board of directors is...
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...At the outset of this course, you will learn the basics of accounting information systems and business processes. Next, you will learn about database management systems, and the design of various database models. Finally, you will learn about how to use internal controls effectively for risk management, as well as the requirements for business reporting. After completing this course, you should not only have a clear idea of how accounting information systems work, but you should also be prepared to design and configure them to meet the record-keeping and risk management requirements of the organization. In addition, you will be prepared to design them to meet legal obligations—such as those defined in the United States’ Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002—as well as ethical obligations. LEARNING OUTCOMES: A. Develop a conceptual knowledge of the nature and functionality of an accounting information system and systems in general (Module 1). B. Explain how an accounting system captures business events,...
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...Research Proposal The Quality of financial Reporting after the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley Act Dr. Hassan Ahmed Assistant Professor at Cameron University Abstract The complexity of business environment necessitates a set of required disclosures in a timely fashion. The full disclosure principle under U.S. GAAP is based on a vague definition that cannot be clearly implemented. The cost of disclosures can be significantly large and can have a negative impact on companies’ future earnings (small businesses). The purpose of this article is to examine the disclosure establishment of pre and post Enron, the effect of those disclosures on both corporations and on potential investors and to examine whether financial reporting quality improved with the passage of SOX. A total of 360 audited annual financial statements of the 500 fortune companies were selected. The paper will specifically concentrate disclosures on financial statements, Notes, supplementary (required or voluntary), and other expanded disclosures required by the SEC. The findings will shed light on our understanding about the intended and unintended consequence of SOX. 1.0 Introduction/Literature Review The purpose of SOX Act is to increase corporate transparency and accountability (Friedman, The Business Forum). Though SOX did not address the full disclosure required by the FASB, it simply expanded disclosures by establishing responsibilities. The company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Financial...
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...| Assignment 1: Review of Accounting Ethics | | | | Assignment 1: Review of Accounting Ethics | | | Doing the right thing matters. Every day, workers make decisions that are vital to a company’s success. How those decisions are made is just as important as the decisions themselves. In every company there are shareholders, consumers, business partners, and employees who have placed their trust in workers to act sincerely, rationally, and in accordance with the utmost ethical and legal standards. Albert Einstein once said that “relativity apples to physics, not ethics.” I perceive this to mean that there should never be a relative situation when it comes to ethics; there is a right and wrong choice. We as human beings need to ensure that we remain exactly that, human beings. Unfortunately, the world is not perfect. There are criminals, liars, cheaters, and scammers who hide in plain sight everywhere we go. Less than 15 years ago, there was a time where multiple financial scandals had been reported taking place in very successful companies, including Enron, WorldCom, AIG, and others (Weygandt, Kimmel, Kieso, 2012, p. 7). The number and magnitude of these scandals resulted in great suspicion of financial reporting, which proved to be detrimental to a company’s success. In my opinion, the most memorable scandal to have taken place in the business world during that time was Enron. During its existence, Enron was an American energy company based in Houston...
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...The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, sponsored by US Senator Paul Sarbanes and US Representative Michael Oxley, represents the biggest change to federal securities laws in decades. Effective in 2006, all publicly-traded companies are required to submit an annual report of the effectiveness of their internal accounting controls to the SEC. It came as a result of the large corporate financial scandals involving Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing and Arthur Andersen. Provisions of the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) detail criminal and civil penalties for noncompliance, certification of internal auditing, and increased financial disclosure. It affects public U.S. companies and non-U.S. companies with a U.S. presence. SOX is all about corporate governance and financial disclosure. High-profile business failures culminating in a media fixation on Enron called into question the effectiveness of business’ self-regulatory process as well as the effectiveness of the audit to uphold public trust in capital markets. Legislation to address shortcomings in financial reporting was slowly progressing in Congress. The sudden collapse of WorldCom guaranteed swift congressional action. President Bush signed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in to Law on July 22, 2002. The most significant legislation affecting the accounting profession since 1933. Developing meaningful reforms that protect the public interest and restore confidence in the accounting profession is the primary focus of the SOX legislation. The SEC...
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...Five Article Review University of Phoenix Contemporary Business Law LAW/421 Valentine Castillo April 29, 2013 University of Phoenix Material Article Review Format Guide MEMORANDUM UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX DATE: April 29, 2013 TO: Valentine Castillo FROM: RE: Sarbanes-Oxley Act: Was the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach justified? Nogler, G., & Inwon, J. (2011, May/June). Sarbanes-Oxley Act: Was the ’one-size-fits-all’ approach justified? Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance (Wiley), 22(4), 65-76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.20691 ARTICLE SYNOPSIS The article discusses whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the subsequence laws were the correct solution for the problems that arose from the Enron and WorldCom bankruptcies. The article illustrates how the different rules and legislature affect different size business, and the ramifications that resulted for companies that must follow the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The authors of the article also conducted a study on whether or not fraud of the financial statements was in direct correlation of businesses filing bankruptcy (Nogler & Inwon, 2011, p. 68) like in the cases of Enron and WorldCom. The results found that the larger the company that filed bankruptcy the more likely that securities fraud litigation and general overstatement of the revenue and assets of the company occurred (Nogler & Inwon, 2011). LEGAL ISSUE Legal issues were rampant in the article. For...
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...to show the company as profitable was transferring debits and losses to offshore businesses that made it look as though on the books they were profiting and to make those unprofitable parts of the company disappear into an offshore business. To hide their losses in the trading business Skilling used mark-to-market accounting. Mark-to-market accounting is used in the security business but what Skilling did was use it for everyday business. Doing this let them write out what they thought a certain venture would be making in the future, without having to have actually made a dime. This let Enron show on the books that the company was actually turning a profit, which made the company look as though it was good to invest in. For example an article written by Chris Seabury stated that what Enron did was build a power plant and then immediately claim the project profit on its books. If the profit of the plant was less than the projected profit the company would transfer the assets to an off the books...
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...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. This time, Congress rushed to pass the Sarbanes-Oxley Act before the August recess. President Bush, who had earlier expressed skepticism about some of the bill’s main provisions, signed the measure into law on July 30, 2002. The implementation of the Act did not pan out the way congress had hoped it would. One of the most vital provisions of the act establishes the Public Company Accounting...
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