SOX Center

Investors who got a midsummer haircut last week during the Dow’s 735-point drop from 14,000 probably aren’t singing Happy Birthday for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which is 5 years old today. But maybe they should be.
If you think last week’s sell-off was bad, recall the summer of 2002. Enron had imploded, WorldCom admitted to fabricating billions […]

While Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance costs decreased overall in 2006, the out-of-pocket costs associated with compliance rose from 2005 to 2006, according to a study planned for release on Thursday.
Foley & Lardner’s fifth annual study measuring the financial impact of Sarbanes-Oxley on public companies finds that the cost of audit fees, board compensation, and legal fees […]

As U.S. regulators and industry recognize Sarbanes-Oxley’s fifth year this July 30, most investors (57 percent) in a new survey by Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management believe the requirements imposed by the law, holding CEOs and senior management personally accountable for the accuracy of their companies’ financial disclosures, are about right, while […]

Japanese insurer Millea Holdings Inc. (8766.T) said on Thursday it will voluntarily have its shares delisted from the U.S. Nasdaq market and stop reporting its earnings under U.S. accounting rules to save costs.
Millea, a holding company with both life and non-life insurance operations, also announced plans to buy back up to 7 million of its […]

Critics of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley act say the bill’s post-Enron/WorldCom accounting reforms have made U.S. capital markets less competitive with those overseas. It’s no surprise that one of its authors, former U.S. Rep. Michael Oxley, says that’s hardly the case. Oxley says recent refinements to the section of the act requiring companies to monitor internal […]

(Bloomberg) — The U.S. House of Representatives moved toward giving small companies an additional year to adhere to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s accounting rules, which are being revised by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
House lawmakers voted 267 to 154 to delay a deadline for companies with less than $75 million in publicly available shares to start […]

This past April, Japanese pitching sensation Daisuke Matsuzaka wowed Red Sox Nation with his “gyroball.” From now until next April, Dave Sackett expects to be equally mesmerized by Japan’s version of the corporate curveball.
The corporate controller of Ulvac Technologies is charged with implementing J-SOX — the Japanese edition of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (sometimes abbreviated as […]

Roger Ehrenberg submits: I feared this day would come. And it’s here. No, not just the saber-rattling and moaning about how hedge fund and private equity-types are too rich, how hedge funds are increasing investor risks and debt buyers are accepting overly-liberal terms fueling the private equity juggernaut and the like.
But a newly-energized Democratic Congress […]

Two separate oversight bodies responsible for financial reporting and auditing rules under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)–the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Public Company Accounting Oversight Board–took steps in late May to streamline and clarify the act’s requirements.
On May 23, the SEC approved new guidelines for interpreting section 404 of SOX, instructing companies to focus […]

Says Sarbanes-Oxley creates fear of litigation
A study of 4,000 U.S. companies shows the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform law has had a chilling effect on risk-taking as many companies seek to conserve cash instead of developing new products or services, a University of Pittsburgh researcher said yesterday.
U.S. companies significantly cut research and development spending and capital expenditures, […]