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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 peac...

Why is Jobs Act important?

Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act or JOBS Act is a law that former president Barack Obama signed on April 5, 2012. The purpose of the act is to increase ability of small businesses to raise capital and generate jobs but also improve financial opportunities for all American citizens and not just wealthy investors. Of all seven titles of the bill Title III that refers to crowdfunding drew most attention. Provisions of the bill made easier for companies go public but also to raise capital and stay private longer. Act defined the term emerging growth company as a company that has less than $1 billion total annual gross revenue in recent fiscal year. The JOBS act provided such businesses with temporary relief from certain SEC requirements which made taking your company public a lot easier. The most significant relief are the exemption from audit of internal controls required under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. It allowed new exemptions from registratio...

Emerging growth companies

Just like smaller reporting companies that we mentioned in the previous article emerging growth companies are entitled to reduce regulatory and reporting requirements under the Securities Act and the Exchange Act  But which companies qualify to be in this category. Emerging growth companies are companies that have total annual gross revenues less than $1.07 billion (initially $1 billion, but the it was adjusted in April, 2017 for inflation) during most recent completed fiscal year and companies retains that status under certain conditions. That is, annual revenues must not exceed $1,070,000,000 and it must not issue more than $1 billion in non-convertible debt over the past three years and must not become large accelerated filer.  Firm  remains being emerging company during the first five fiscal years  after completion of an IPO. A company could not be an emerging growth company if it completed its IPO on or before December 8, 2011 because this cat...

Smaller reporting company

Reporting company or reporting issuer is a company that is obliged to file periodic reports under section 13 or 15 (d) of Securities Exchange Act. There are couple of reason why companies become reporting issuers. One of the reasons is securities exchange listing. Before securities can be traded on one of the exchanges they must be registered with Securities and Exchange Commission. Another reason is size threshold. If company has assets worth more than $10 million and a class of equity securities held by 2,000 person or 50 or more non accredited investors. Companies that issue securities but are not listed on any exchanges are also subject to Securities Exchange Act. In the first two cases company must file periodic and current reports. SEC divides reporting companies that file periodic reports under Securities Exchange Act of 1934 into different categories based on size among other factors. Smaller companies have less stringent reporting requirements and are exempt from ...