Sarbanes Oxley Act Sarbanes Oxley Act was instituted in 2002 as result of the financial scandals at the end of 1990’s and earlier 2000’s. The act was “named after Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley” (Soxlawcom, 2015). The act contains eleven titles. Basically, the purpose of the act was to improve corporate behavior across the country and to restore investor’s confidence in the market by placing accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosure and by imposing certain restrictions and actions in the audit process. There are different opinions throughout the country regarding the efficiency of the act. 1990’s was a time of economic prosperity. Many companies were looking very financially sound and very appealing for investors. …show more content…
Due to this reason many of these companies begin to expose financial fraud. The government believed that the impact of these actions was not going to be corrected by the free market economy. Therefore, the government did the necessary to impose legislation and to establish a consistent ethical standard across the country. The major changes of the act can be summarized in the first title of the act with “the creation of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, also known as the PCAOB” (Secgov, 2015). The board is allow to oversee the audit process, to establish audit rules, and to enforce the compliance of these rules by significantly increasing criminal penalties for violation of the security act. The act also mandate PCAOB to impose audit standards that requires document retention and internal control testing. The second title of the act was an amendment to the meaning of auditor’s independence. It also imposes additional …show more content…
Some of the positive feelings regarding the act is the protection and confidence that investors are regaining. Also, many companies are getting high amount of quality data because auditors continue evaluating and testing their internal control, which restrict and eliminate the weaknesses. There is also being a significant whistle blower and statutes amendments protecting them. In overall the Sarbanes Oxley Act was institute to prevent dishonesty and to improve the audit process by establishing ethical standards around the country (Wwweycom, 2015). Reference: 1. Soxlawcom. (2015). Soxlawcom. Retrieved 22 September, 2015, from http://www.soxlaw.com/ 2. Secgov. (2015). Secgov. Retrieved 22 September, 2015, from http://www.sec.gov/about/laws.shtml 3. Accountingwebcom. (2012). AccountingWEB. Retrieved 22 September, 2015, from http://www.accountingweb.com/practice/practice-excellence/has-sox-been-successful 4. Wwweycom. (2015). Wwweycom. Retrieved 24 September, 2015, from
Under a research concerning the incorporation of public accounting, researchers have found articles related to it. AICPA once opposed in the incorporation of public accounting in reasons that it may fall under the management of non-accountants. (The CPA Journal Online) When Rule 505 of Code of professional Conduct was already existing (Practice of Professional Corporation), issues arises about the protection of an accountant as shareholder in the corporation. On October 1990, the Council of the AICPA amend Rule 505 of the AICPA Code of Professional Ethics to make it possible for CPAs to practice as "limited liability corporations.
The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act (Price-Anderson Act) was first signed into law on September 2, 1957. The act serves as an amendment to the 1946 Atomic Energy Act (AEA), intended to stimulate development of the private nuclear industry by establishing limits of liability and indemnifying the nuclear industry against liability from a nuclear incident. Additionally provides compensation coverage for the general public in case of an incident. (Hore, 2009). The Price-Anderson Act places an increasingly disproportionate liability on the taxpayer in the event of a nuclear incident, whether accidental, from negligent or malicious acts, effectively protecting the industry regardless of fault.
Ashley Smith CRJU 1400 LU 7 Review Questions Review Questions for Learning Unit Seven What governs the ethical conduct of lawyers? Discuss the pros and cons of plea bargaining. What has the U.S. Supreme Court held in regards to the professional misconduct of prosecutors? (in terms of punishment) How do forfeiture laws help to deter the conduct of mob lawyers?
Following the Great Depression, there was a dire need for regulation and full disclosure of accounting records within the securities markets. “Some feel that insufficient and misleading financial statement information led to inflated stock prices and that this contributed to the stock market crash and the subsequent depression” (Spiceland 9). When investors did not have accurate financial information at their disposal, they were prone to making poor investing decisions. The Securities & Exchange Acts of 1933 and 1934 were the first pieces of legislature to require public companies to be audited quarterly and annually. These acts were designed to restore investor confidence in the markets.
The moment that the Twin Towers fell in New York, America became destined for change. In the wake of these attacks, the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 was quickly passed through congress, and signed by then-president, George W. Bush. The act itself gives the FBI and other government agencies the ability to do and use certain methods, many of which are already used by other law enforcement organizations, to help prevent future terrorist attacks. Since then, this piece of legislation has been the center of much debate and controversy. But, there is ample reason to believe that the Patriot Act is needed and effective.
Because unemployment rates and inflation rates were going down, many Americans had money to spend once again. (presidentprofiles.org, 2015) Investors began to realize that investing in business that were risky was a way to make money. This was not legal before, but the regulations were now gone due to Reagan’s
The Affordable Health Care Act is flawed in numerous ways. The premiums are higher than they anticipated them to be. They tried to make it to where everyone would pay the same amount, however it is more expensive to do this. That reason is people that are very sick are in the same health care plan as people that are healthy, and they never visit the doctor. So, healthy people are paying the costs for sick people to go to the doctor.
According to the new structured code, self-review threat explains that the members faced with the threat of inappropriately evaluating judgments and services provided, they will depend on that service provided to make a decision as an attest engagement. Furthermore, the PEEC came up with the decision of replacing the word attest client with the client to avoid misapplication of the guidance. (CPA, Sir manager and special projects). In addition, when dealing with the positions of bank directors, guidelines were provided. However, while restructuring this guideline, PPEC thought it necessary that the regulations concerning it to be presented more generally so that the guideline applied when stuff in the public practice were interested in serving as directors in an organizational
The Social Security Act was the best of reform legislations, and is still intact today. It provided assistance for the elderly, unemployed, disabled, and families with children. The reform that, for generations afterward, would affect the lives of nearly all American was the passage in 1935 of the Social Security Act. It created a federal insurance program based upon the automatic collection of payments from employees and employers throughout people’s working careers. The Social Security trust fund would then be used to make monthly payments to retired persons over the age of 65.
Throughout the case, it can be seen how Cendant Corporation was performing activities that dealt with the interactions of income smoothing. The main cause of performing with Income Smoothing was to make their shareholders and investors believe that they had a professional and ethical operation running. Income smoothing can best be represented as how either gains or losses from a certain period are taken into a good or bad period with losses or no profits. Income smoothing throughout this case was used as an unethical practice performed by Cendant Corporation to achieve financial stability and falsify numbers to make the investors believe they had premium stocks when in reality it wasn’t what was really occurring which would then lead to the
This is believed to have kicked off the 90’s tech boom and created a United States championship of leading the world in technology. On top of helping the tech area of the economy, Reagan created a 92 month long economic growth boom from Nov. 1982 until July 1990. It was said by, “Milton Friedman, the Nobel prize-winning economist, Reagan's tax cuts -- especially the 1986 bill -- were "one of the most important factors in the boom of the 1990s”
As companies were easing back from the war-time economy, people were buying more things. As the elected presidents of that time gave tax cuts and vetoed bills in their favor, companies were growing. With the growth of companies, their workers were getting higher wages and more people were employed, giving them excess money. More money meant that people were able to buy things previously unable to. Some of these new things were like the Model T Ford, the Band-Aid and the television.
Since 2008 the SEC has continued to make reforms and improvements in order to deter another instance like the Madoff fraud. Some of the initiatives that the SEC has taken, are to refurbish how tips are treated, promoting whistleblowing systems, refining fraud detection techniques, and reviving enforcement
Conclusion After reviewing the information obtained through this report, it highlights the lack of regulation and their accounting practices which took place within Lehman Brothers. The accounting practices that were used within the bank were set by the tone at the top and show that the CFO’s during the 2000’s and going forward had plenty of knowledge of the Repo 105 transactions and had no great will to do anything about. The thinking at the time seemed to be, that the company had used this accounting practice for so long, that if there was something wrong it would have come up by now no point rocking the boat.