Skip to main content

Importance of Sarbanes-Oxley Act


Sarbanes - Oxley Act is the United States federal law that amended and supplemented existing requirements in corporate financial reporting and accounting practices. Commonly called SOX Act was signed into law by President Bush on July 30, 2002. After highly publicized corporate financial scandals including Enron and WorldCom the purpose of the Act was to restore investor's shaken confidence in the market and truthfulness of corporate financial statements and close loopholes in the law that led to fraud.

The Act that got the name from two sponsors Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes and Rep. Michael G. Oxley created strict new rules for accountants, auditors, corporate officers and more strict record keeping requirements. Also it added new, more stringent criminal penalties for violation of this law. The new law set out reforms in four principle areas: corporate responsibilities, criminal punishment, accounting regulations and new protections. SOX is a lengthy and complex peace of legislation but we will single out couple of key provisions.

Publicly traded companies file period and annual financial reports where they provide investors, partners and market with information about company's assets, liabilities and revenues. Reported financial information has crucial importance in company share price and in investors decision whether to buy or sell particular stock. Misleading and fraudulent financial statement can cause serious harm to investors, other businesses and market on the whole.

Sarbanes -Oxley requires senior corporate officers to personally certify in writing accuracy of their financial statements. Corporate officers who knowingly certify false financial statements can go to prison.

Management and auditors must establish internal control and reporting methods to provide adequacy of that control. Periodic financial reports includes internal control report and annual report includes assessment of efficiency of that internal control.

Before SOX accounting was self-regulatory profession. Act created Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), a private sector, non-profit corporation that oversees the audits of public companies in order to protect the interest of investors.
Labels:
Location: West Palm Beach, FL, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

OTC stocks more difficult to trade and deposit

  Mina Mar Group helps micro-cap companies structure their growth. Micro-capitalized companies are those with less than $50,000,000 in equity, sometimes under $1,000,000. Restructuring involves raising money (both debt and stock), and planning how they will eventually harvest that wealth. If you’re a founder or investor, the secret to harvesting your equity is to possess assets with a developed market for their sale; up until recently, that market was the public market. Now, Over-The-Counter Securities (“OTC Securities”) don’t serve that purpose since, unless you’re a tech unicorn doing an IPO, there are essentially no ways to sell the shares you’ve invested in. OTC securities – how they were deposited five years ago. Brokerages all around the country have tightened compliance over the past five years to the point where no one may deposit share certificates into their brokerage accounts, even if they can prove that they paid for them. Consider the following demand from a secondary ...
Post a Comment
Read more

S1 Registration

A Form S1 represents the opening registration that a US firm must submit with the SEC prior to an Initial Public Offering. The Securities Act requires a registration statement, otherwise known as Securities and Exchange Commission Form S1, previous to security can be issued on a public exchange such as the NASDAQ, NYSE, or other exchanges. Foreign corporations can register with the SEC, but they must do so using the SEC Form F1. Corporations must fill out Form S1 to outline their intended use of capital proceeds, a description of their current business strategy and competition, and a brief prospectus for the new security, including offering pricing mechanism and any other dilution to other listed stocks.  The SEC also mandates that any material business conducted between the corporations and its directors and external counsel be disclosed. Investors can access S1 filings online in order to do due diligence on new offers before they go public.  As a result, businesses can use t...
Post a Comment
Read more

How important marketing is for Regulation A?

  Regulation A+ represents the lately enacted SEC rule that amends and expands the rarely utilized Regulation A offering exemption. Regulation A+ might be viewed as an alternative to a small registered IPO and also, as a substitute or addition to other securities offering procedures that are not subject to registration under the Securities Act.  Although Regulation A+ is still quite new, it is swiftly establishing a name as the perfect spot for so many American businesses looking for capital. Reg A+, which is supported by the SEC, actually permits non-SEC reporting corporations to raise capital from public investors while also allowing (or even more motivating) the issuer to publicize their offering openly.  The opportunity to publicly market to investors has benefited greatly for numerous corporations.  This method is intended to reduce regulatory constraints by allowing companies who wouldn’t have contemplated pursuing total IPOs to get the type of financing necess...
Post a Comment
Read more