Compliance Sarbanes Oxley

Why can’t ethics replace internal controls?
Thank you for all of your help!

For your first question, the act has demanded that management assess its own internal controls over financial reporting which leads them to mitigate risks of material mistatements due to errors or frauds.

For the second one, ethics cant replace internal controls due to two reasons:

1. Mistatements due to errors are not caused by lack of ethics but lack of proper error mitigating controls (preventative and detective measures).

2. Management may include unethical people and you can’t get as much assurance that management is ethical as you can from testing to see if a control is working.

the act required the management of the publicly owned companies to have risk and set the outside auditors as independant in assessing the risk. the act has a financial burden on companies. the act has legal challenges which are also costly. all of this should be reflected in the financial statement.

What exactly happened that caused the sarbanes-oxley act to happen?

The Act came in the wake of a series of corporate financial scandals, including those affecting Enron, Tyco International, and WorldCom (now MCI). Named after sponsors Senator Paul Sarbanes (D–Md.) and Representative Michael G. Oxley (R–Oh.), the Act was approved by the House by a vote of 423-3 and by the Senate 99-0.

After all, Sarbanes-Oxley forced a certain degree of accountability and transparency onto companies. Would there have been more companies like AIG, Lehman Brothers, General Motors, Fannie Mae etc. if the Act hadn’t been introduced, thus making the recession even worse?

Would you go as far as to say Pres. Bush even deserves credit for making the recession not as bad as it could have been?

Everyone knows that act was a joke considering it has never been implemented. Hello – gas prices were at 1.10/gal when Bush took office and over $3 when he left – they tripled in 8 years causing massive inflation and the tanking of the economy – something we’ve never experienced before. I’ll give him 100% credit for it.

Is there any requirement for Telecom Operators to have a multi-vendor network in order to be Sarbanes-Oxley Compliant?

Check with their HR department.

My company has been meeting Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) requirements through manual spreadsheet-based processes. We want to automate these processes. What kind of technology is out there now to help with SOX compliance?

It is difficult to provide non-repudiation within spreadsheets in a scalable context. To replace spreadsheets look towards governance, risk and compliance (GRC) management platforms. Vendors in this space include Axentis, BWise, MEGA, JmeSoftwares. They are a much better choice over the use of spreadsheets for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.

How has Sarbanes-Oxley impacted corporate governance/ In your opinion, which provision of Sarbanes-Oxley is most difficult for organizations to implement?

To improve quality and transparency in financial reporting and independent audits and accounting services for public companies, to create a Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, to enhance the standard setting process for accounting practices, to strengthen the independence of firms that audit public companies, to increase corporate responsibility and the usefulness of corporate financial disclosure, to protect the objectivity and independence of securities analysts, to improve Securities and Exchange Commission resources and oversight, and for other purpose.~