In response to Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Peregrine and some of the biggest accounting firms playing a shell games with the corporate books, Congress enacted The Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002.

Today Siemens, based in Munich, Germany is being eyed for over 500 million dollars worth of bribes to public officials in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa and other questionable payments by the company which occurred without top managements knowledge, according to the International Herald Tribune.

In Germany it is a crime for corporate officials to bribe a public official. It is a crime in most modern countries to report embellished earnings or hide essential facts to their investors. Essentially, Sarbanes-Oxley and every other codification of bad conduct cannot prevent anyone hell bent on greed from devising a plan of deception.

[1] American Chronicle: Sarbanes-Oxley Can’t Beat Culture of Good Old Fashion Greed