Online Exclusive: A decade of SOX
A reaction to Enron- and WorldCom-type accounting scandals, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) became law on July 30, 2002. Although the sweeping legislation had unassailable goals—preventing and deterring future accounting fraud, protecting shareholders and increasing confidence in public company financial reporting and, thus, in the U.S. capital markets—it was divisive. It imposed tremendous new duties and costs on public companies and accounting firms, and a decade later, people are still split about whether the money, time and focus lost to SOX are worth the benefits it’s yielded.
