The Pupose of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act

Paper Summary:

This paper explains the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which requires all companies to file periodic reports with the SEC, changes the responsibilities of directors and offices, and modifies the reporting and corporate government obligations of SEC-reporting companies. The author points out that the business objective of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is to restore investor confidence in companies and markets. The paper concludes that, in the long run, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act will do little to increase the integrity of certified financial results and may only lead to an upswing in litigation.

From the Paper:

"The economic fall out of corporate fraud has been devastating (Taylor, 2003). Seven of the twelve largest bankruptcies in U.S. history are now working their way through the courts. A slew of over-hyped Internet companies have gone out of business. On December 2, 2001, Enron filed for what was then the largest bankruptcy in US history at $63 billion. This was followed by bankruptcy filings from Adelphia Communications in June ($24 billion) and by Worldcom ($104 billion) in July, the largest bankruptcy in history. In all these cases, the companies had simply lied about their earnings. And, the stock market has been decimated. The bear market has lasted longer than that of the Great Depression. At its low, the S&P 500 was down forty-nine percent from its high in 2000, and NASDAQ was down seventy-eight percent."

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