SOX Center

Richard Wasielewski, Nortech Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:NSYS) vice president and chief financial officer, testified Wednesday before a U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship that Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) regulatory requirements have both helped Nortech improve its internal controls and financial reporting practices but also that the new requirements have added considerably to the company’s costs.

Wasielewski appeared before the committee at the invitation of U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), to address the significant time and money small public companies, such as Nortech Systems, invest in Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.

The hearing preceded the introduction of new legislation, The Small Business Regulatory Review Act of 2007 (S.1153), the following day by Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee Ranking Member Olympia J. Snowe (R-ME) and Senator Coleman. The new legislation would require the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) to take into account the burdens faced by small businesses before issuing final Sarbanes-Oxley rules and ensure that SOX regulations due in June 2007 do not disproportionately impact the nation’s small publicly traded companies

Broadcast Newsroom: Nortech Systems’ CFO Testifies on Sarbanes-Oxley Reform

Yesterday, Marie Leone’s blog took the U.S. Senate to task for walking out on their cafeteria bills, drawing a neat analogy to Bluto, John Belushi’s cafeteria-plundering character in Animal House. (A free CFO.com travel mug goes to the first poster who can tell us why else Marie’s analogy was so apt).

But Sarah Johnson’s story about The Sarbox Hot Potato today has Congress walking out on a bill — or, in this case, a law — in an entirely different sense. Faced with a powerful and well-organized backlash against Sarbanes-Oxley, congressmen are leaping onto the bandwagon to criticize their own law, while at the same time shunting most of the blame, not to mention the responsibility for the fix, onto the SEC.

CFO.com: Blowing in the Wind