SOX (Generally)

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The Sarbanes-Oxley Act‘s legacy may be mixed in some important ways, but one of it more enduring aspects has been its requirement for publicly traded companies to have mechanisms to for employees report concerns anonymously and confidentially. Most companies now have ethics reporting hotlines – in fact, the SOX confidential reporting requirement has spawned an entire industry of third-party firms providing hotline services to public companies, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article. As the Journal article reports, these hotlines have in fact in some instance led to the uncovering of serious concerns, including even instance of accounting misreporting. The September 12, 2025, Journal article, which is entitled “Sex Scandals. Accounting Fraud. It’s All Showing Up on the Corporate Hotline,” can be found here.Continue Reading An Important and Enduring SOX Legacy: Ethics Reporting Hotlines

financial statementsFinancial restatements among U.S public companies hit their lowest level in years in 2016, according to the updated annual report of Audit Analytics. As a result of heightened standards as well as the decreased numbers of listed companies, the share U.S. companies restating their prior financial statements hit their lowest level since 2010 and the number of companies restating their financials is at its lowest level since at least 2002. The findings are summarized in a June 12, 2017 Audit Analytics blog post (here). The full report can be found here (subscription or purchase required).
Continue Reading Financial Restatements Continue to Decline for U.S. Reporting Companies

magglassThe Sarbanes Oxley Act was enacted nearly twelve years ago in the midst of profusion of corporate scandals. Despite the passage of time, the Act has remained controversial. In order to evaluate the Act’s impact, Harvard Law Professor John C. Coates and Harvard Business School Professor Suraj Srinivasan undertook to review over 120 studies of …

Strangely, the Judge Couldn’t Be Found Inside the Mailbox at the UPS Store: According to the February 12, 2009 Atlanta Constitution (here), Fulton County deputies have yet to serve suit papers filed on December 12, 2008 against a Fulton County Superior Court Judge, even though the deputies and the Judge all work in the…

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket When it passed the Sarbanes Oxley Act in 2002, Congress’ primary focus was on the transparency and governance of publicly traded companies. But the Act has turned out to have a more pervasive influence, affecting not just public companies but also private companies and nonprofit entities as well. A June 18, 2007 report (here…

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting The Committee on Capital Markets Regulation (or the "Paulson Committee" as the group has come to be known) is scheduled to release its recommendations later this week, on November 30. The Paulson Committee is concerned with the competitiveness of the U.S. securities exchanges in the global marketplace, and the perceived inability of the U.S exchanges…

A November 20, 2006 Wall Street Journal article entitled “Companies Discover It’s Hard to Reclaim Pay from Executives” (here, subscription required) details the difficulty that companies are having in their attempts to compel executives to return compensation they didn’t really earn because, as a result of later restatements, the company didn’t actually hit…

According to news reports (here), Alan Greenspan recently made public statements critical of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, apparently telling the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council on September 24, 2006 that the Act has become a “nightmare” that should be scrapped. Greenspan apparently told the audience that the SOX regulations are hampering business, discouraging risk taking,…