SOX Center

Business advisors Grant Thornton LLP have applauded the SEC and the PCAOB for their efforts in addressing the legitimate concerns of the capital markets while still reinforcing the value of Sarbanes-Oxley to investors.

“We believe that the new guidance and auditing standards strike an appropriate balance between efficiency and effectiveness, though it will take time to fully realize the effects,” the company said in a statement.

It added: “We believe that the current efforts of the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) will help organizations more efficiently monitor the effectiveness of their internal control systems throughout the year. COSO recently commissioned Grant Thornton LLP to develop guidance - scheduled for completion in early 2008 - that will include in-depth guidance for implementing the monitoring component of COSO’s Internal Control — Integrated Framework.”

A public discussion document regarding this guidance should be available in June 2007.

Investorsoffshore: Advisors Applaud SEC, PCAOB For Addressing Sarbanes-Oxley Concerns

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, securities fraud necessarily requires complicity,” said William Black of the Kansas City, Mo.-based Institute for Fraud Prevention, which sponsored the study.

The institute is a coalition of universities funded by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, accounting firm Grant Thornton LLP and D-Quest Inc., a risk-management firm.

The study examined companies accused of fraud in lawsuits or regulatory actions.

CEOs were implicated in nearly 90 percent of the cases examined. Next came CFOs, 78 percent. Then board directors, 40 percent; vice presidents, 36 percent; COOs, 20 percent; controllers, 19 percent; and general counsels, 7 percent.

Big accounting firms - including Arthur Andersen, KPMG, Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young and Price Waterhouse - were implicated in 18 percent of the cases, the study said. (Grant Thornton, which sponsored the study, is not mentioned, but it has had similar issues.)

The study said that in many cases, management ran the board instead of the other way around. Often, the board chairman and the CEO were one and the same.

Denver Post: Fraud too pervasive to roll back SarbOx