The Sarbanes Oxley Act Of 2002

The purpose of this memo is to provide you with information on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX Act) and to describe the importance of its implementation, per your request. The SOX Act was first introduced in the house as the “Corporate and Auditing Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency Act of 2002” by Michael Oxley on February 14, 2002. Paul Sarbanes, a Democrat U.S. Senator, collaborated with Mr. Oxley, a Republican US Senator, creating significant bipartisan support. The SOX Act was enacted by the end of July 2002 in response to recent corporate accounting scandals. The twin scandals that were impetus for the legislation involved the corporations of Enron and WorldCom.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or SOX Act, was enacted on July 30, 2002. Since it was enacted that summer it has changed how the public business handle their accounting and auditing. The federal law was made coming off of a number of large corporations involved in scandals. For example a company like Enron was caught in accounting fraud in late 2001 when the company was using false financial statements. Once Enron was caught that had many lawsuits filed against them and had to file for bankruptcy. It was this scandal that played a big part in producing the Sarbanes-Oxley act in 2002.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002Introduction2001-2002 was marked by the Arthur Andersen accounting scandal and the collapse of Enron and WorldCom. Corporate reforms were demanded by the government, the investors and the American public to prevent similar future occurrences. Viewed to be largely a result of failed or poor governance, insufficient disclosure practices, and a lack of satisfactory internal controls, in 2002 George W. Bush signed into law the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that became effective on July 30, 2002. Congress was seeking to set standards and guarantee the accuracy of financial reports.

This memorandum discusses a brief history of Pat, his wrongdoings and related action, and the response by the related law enforcement agencies.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act and the Auditing Accountability and Responsibility Act, was signed into law on July 30, 2002, by President George W. Bush as a direct response to the corporate financial scandals of Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco International (Arens & Elders, 2006; King & Case, 2014;Rezaee & Crumbley, 2007). Fraudulent financial activities and substantial audit failures like those of Arthur Andersen and Ernst and Young had destroyed public trust and investor confidence in the accounting profession. The debilitating consequences of these perpetrators and their crimes summoned a massive effort by the government and the accounting profession to fight all forms of corruption through regulatory, legal, auditing, and accounting changes.

The Sarbanes-Oxley is a U.S. federal law that has generated much controversy, and involved the response to the financial scandals of some large corporations such as Enron, Tyco International, WorldCom and Peregrine Systems. These scandals brought down the public confidence in auditing and accounting firms. The law is named after Senator Paul Sarbanes Democratic Party and GOP Congressman Michael G. Oxley. It was passed by large majorities in both Congress and the Senate and covers and sets new performance standards for boards of directors and managers of companies and accounting mechanisms of all publicly traded companies in America. It also introduces criminal liability for the board of directors and a requirement by

In July 2002, a corporate reform bill was passed into United States Federal law by the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. This legislation introduced new and amended ethical standards regarding financial practice and corporate governance for all publicly traded U.S. companies, as well as for management and accounting organizations. U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes and U.S. Representative Michael G. Oxley spearheaded the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act (Pub. L. 107-204) (Sarbanes & Oxley, 2002). This was originally known as “Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, also known as SOX Act, is a federal law that was passed on July 30, 2002, by Congress. This law was established to help set new or enhance laws for all United States accounting firms, management, and public company. The SOX Act would now make corporate executives accountable for their unethical behavior. This bill was passed due to the action of the Enron and Worldcom scandal, which cost their investors billions of dollars, caused their company to fold, and questioned the nations' securities markets.

After major corporate and accounting scandals like those that affected Tyco, Worldcom and Enron the Federal government passed a law known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act. This law was passed in hopes of thwarting illegal and misleading acts by financial reporters and putting a stop to the decline of public trust in accounting and reporting practices. Two important topics covered in Sarbanes-Oxley are auditor independence and the reporting and assessment of internal controls under section 404.

Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) was created to address the reoccurrence the likes of the several major scandals of the past. The nature of those past years scandals made it clear that preventative measures was a possible way to prevent any future scandals. And the efficacy of Sarbanes Oxley Act, many people as well as companies believed that fraud is easy to prevent.

After a prolonged length of corporate scandals involving big public businesses from 2000 to 2002, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act changed into enacted in July 2002 to restore buyers' self-belief in markets and near loopholes for public groups to defraud traders. The act had a profound effect on company governance within the country. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires public groups to bolster audit committees, carry out inner controls assessments, set personal liability of directors and officers for accuracy of financial statements, and enhance disclosure. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act also establishes stricter crook consequences for securities fraud and changes how public accounting companies operate their corporations.

US government in July 2002 passed the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 shortly known as SOX. The act was named on Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley who was its main contributor. The act came after when a series of scandal such as Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Global Crossing and Arthur Andersen came into the light, which resulted in the loss of investors’ money and confidence. Therefore, the main objective of SOX was to protect the interest of shareholders and general public from accounting errors and fraudulent practices done by corporations.

The Sarbanes Oxley Act was approved and activated in 2002 to protect investors and to renew confidence in American companies from what happened with the fall of companies like Enron, HealthSouth, and WorldCom. This act was trusted to fix or find corruption in the companies and make them liable for their unethical activities. Although this act has proven to have many benefits, the cost of complying with the act for some companies has been much greater than expected. There are also negative

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, enacted as a reaction to the WorldCom, Enron, and other corporate scandals, improved the regulatory protections presented to U.S. investors by adding an audit committee requirement, intensification of auditor independence, increasing disclosure requirements, prohibiting loans to executives, adding a certification requirement, and strengthening criminal and civil penalties for violations of securities laws.

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