Sarbanes Oxley Act Of 2002 - 1410 Words

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, also known as the SOX Act, is enacted on July 30, 2002 by Congress as a result of some major accounting frauds such as Enron and WorldCom. The main objective of this act is to recover the investors’ trust in the stock market, and to prevent and detect corporate accounting fraud. I will discuss the background of Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and why it became necessary in the first section of this paper. The second section will be the act’s regulations for the management, external auditors, and companies, mainly publicly-traded companies, and the cost and benefits of the act. The last section will be the discussion of the quality of financial reporting since SOX and the effectiveness of SOX provisions to prevent†¦show more content†¦Following these series of failures, SOX was enacted to restore investor’s confidence which was rattled and to prevent accounting frauds in the future with improved corporate governance and accountability which all public companies must comply. SOX was named after Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael G. Oxley, who were the main drafters of the Act. It was approved by the House of Representatives and signed into law by the President George W. Bush on July 30, 2003. Lack of ethics and integrity seem to be the key factors that caused accounting fraud. SOX revised the framework for the public accounting and auditing profession, provided guidance for better corporate governance and created regulations to define how public companies are to comply with the law. Although many have questioned whether SOX is actually effective to prevent frauds like Enron and WorldCom in future, it is considered to be the most extensive legislation related to publicly- traded companies and external independent auditors since the 1930s. President Bush called it â€Å"the most far reaching reforms of American Business Practices since the time of Franklin Roosevelt† (BUMILLER, 2002). The purpos e of this paper is to determine whether or not Sarbanes Oxley’s regulations will be effective in preventing another financial statement fraud like Enron and WorldCom. Enron Enron was formed in July 1985 by the merger of InterNorth and Houston Natural