The past years have been fraught with big industry accounting scandals, misreporting, criminal investigations and prosecutions. Enron and WorldCom are two organizations that will probably come into most of the public's minds when thinking of accounting downfalls of large companies.
The SEC and government have worked hard to put limitations into place to restrict activities that place responsibility into corporate accounting procedures. This becomes especially important to the CIO and CEO levels, as they are increasingly held responsible for these mistakes, and must ensure they take a hand in everything their company is doing from an accounting perspective.
This document will take a look at the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and how it can affect your accounting and trading procedures. It will go through some of the high points of the act, some of the pros and cons of the legislation, and some of the ethical considerations.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act went into effect on November 15, 2002. It is designed to deter financial malpractice and accounting scandal. Often, it is referred to as SOX, SarbOx, or SOA. Two congressmen, Democratic Senator Paul Sarbanes from Maryland and Republican Representative Michael Oxley from Ohio, are the men who pushed the Act through and are credited by name. The Act generally covers governance issues, especially those dealing with trade. The following are some of the high points of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
The Board of Directors in a company now must have at least five financially-literate members, which are appointed for five-year terms. Two of these members must be, or have been, certified public accounts, and the other three must not be, or cannot have been CPAs. This allows financially savvy board me ...