Adoption of Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 as an Important Piece of Term Paper

Adoption of Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 as an Important Piece of Legislation - Term Paper manikinIn the last section the hatch evaluates the costs and benefits of the changes ushered in by the Sarbanes-Oxley lick of 2002. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was drafted by the senator Paul Sarbanes and representative Michael Oxley (SOX-online.com, 2006 Online). The primary objective of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was to protect and safeguard the interests of the investors by assuring transparency, truth and reliability of the financial disclosures made by the corporations. It is a mandatory Act and all the large and venial US organizations are required to abide by and follow the provisions and requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This Act came into force in the year 2002 and brought in sweeping changes into the area of financial disclosure and unified governance (Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 2006 Online). The Enhanced Standards indispensable by Sarbanes-Oxley Act The Sarbanes-Oxley Act not only established new standards of financial news discipline and corporate governance but also made provisions for the apt statutory penalties to be imposed in case of any wrongdoing not allowed for and sanctioned by this act. The Act made the corporate accounting system more transparent and responsible by formalizing and assuring the interaction between corporate auditors and corporate boards and executives . This totally obliterated the possibility of an excuse on the part of top executives in corporations regarding being incognizant of the organizational accounting systems and the accompanying disclosures made by the auditors. To put it simply, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act made the top executives equal CEOs and CFOs directly responsible for corporate accounting and subsequently culpable in case of any wrongdoing or misreporting in the organizations financial reporting (US Securities and Exchange Commission 2010 Online). This act clear specifies the responsibilities associated with the organizational financial accounting. Sarbanes-Oxley Act has also introduced a mechanism of internal controls and monitoring to assure the believability of financial reporting (US Securities and Exchange Commission, 2010 Online). According to this act, the companies are required to tag an internal control report with every financial report (US Securities and Exchange Commission, 2010 Online). The yearly financial reports are also required to report on the reliability and effectiveness of the internal controls (US Securities and Exchange Commission, 2010 Online). Further, the concerned auditing firms are required to stand basis these reports (US Securities and Exchange Commission, 2010 Online). This places the onus on the auditing firms to review the associated procedures, controls and policies, besides conducting the regular financial audit (US Securities and Exchange Commission, 2010 Online). In case a company fails to abide by any requirement or section of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the act allows for a range of penalties for the culprit organization and executives, which include fines amounting to