SOX Center

U.S. accounting overseers voted Thursday to streamline rules for auditors’ assessments of corporate financial statements, in a move that supporters say will save time and simplify burdens imposed by the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
By unanimous vote, the five members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board approved a new standard directing accounting companies to focus their […]

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved new guidance on Wednesday to help companies comply with what critics say is a burdensome and costly provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform law.
The agency, by a 5-0 vote, encouraged companies to take a more risk-based approach to complying with Section 404 of the legislation.
“Congress never intended that […]

The financial reporting legislation may be changed in order to relax stringent regulations and reduce the cost of compliance
Regulators are preparing to review elements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to determine whether or not portions of the financial reporting legislation should be relaxed to ease the burden on companies doing business in the United States.
On May […]

“A series of accounting irregularities at large companies have deepened public distrust of both accounting and auditing firms.”
This is the opening sentence of a recent editorial in the Japan Times Online, entitled “Auditing Accountability,” that continues, “It is hoped that a bill to revise the Certified Public Accountant Law, now on the Diet floor, will […]

U.S. securities regulators will vote on tweaks to the controversial Sarbanes-Oxley law on Wednesday, finalizing changes initially approved in April amid continuing complaints from businesses about the law’s unpopular accounting provision.
At issue is Section 404 of the law, which was passed in 2002 following scandals at Enron and other companies. The section requires companies to […]

Five years after being the first to file for whistle-blower protection under Sarbanes-Oxley, former CFO David Welch has lost the family farm and his savings, and still doesn’t have a job.
When David Welch became the first person to win protection under the whistle-blower provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act back in 2002, the former CFO of […]

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board on May 24, 2007, will vote on a final standard on auditing internal control over financial reporting, as well as a related independence rule and conforming amendments to the Board’s auditing standards. If adopted, the new standard would supersede the Board’s existing auditing standard, Auditing Standard No. 2, “An […]

Teamwork counts, especially when it comes to committing crimes at a corporation.
In a new examination of 374 companies accused of securities fraud between 1997 and 2002, an average of seven people were implicated in each case, including CEOs, chief financial officers, chief operating officers, general counsels, board directors and auditors.
“Far from being a solitary act, […]

In ‘06, public companies benefited from earlier efforts to comply with the governance measure.
Public companies spent 23 percent less adhering to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s accounting rules in 2006, as they benefited from work done in earlier years to comply with the landmark federal corporate-governance law, a new survey found.
Complying with the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act […]

Since the passage of the Public Company Account­ing Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002 (the Sarbanes–Oxley Act), small and mid-sized public companies have struggled to comply with its onerous provisions, which created an enormous and dispro­portionate regulatory burden. Most of these costs can be attributed to Section 404, a small section of only 168 […]