From Enron to WorldCom and Beyond: Life and Crime After Sarbanes-Oxley

Regulation and Sarbanes-Oxley

Many of the papers in this special issue are concerned with regulation and some with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). In this commentary, I will begin by summarizing the arguments for regulation that have been made in the literature.1 I will then consider whether these arguments apply to SOX. I will suggest that, rather than being based on sound principles, regulation often seems to be a consequen...

Sarbanes-Oxley Links IT to Corporate Compliance

In the wake of financial frauds and related audit issues, the US Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley (SARBOX) Act of 2002. Key to becoming SARBOX compliant are information systems (IS) that satisfy the mandates regarding internal controls, corporate governance, and fraud detection. These legal developments focusing senior management's attention on (1) internal controls are present and functionin...

Holistic Compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley

The theory underlying US securities laws is that investors are helpless without reliable information [Zelizer, 2002]. When Enron's collapse and other corporate frauds made it clear that "practically every element of our system of safeguards failed until it was too late to repair the damage," Congress reinforced those laws by passing the Sarbanes-Oxley (SARBOX) Act [O'Malley, 2002]. This new law...

Why Sarbanes-Oxley Whistleblowers Don’t Win

Sarbanes-Oxley: What About all the Spreadsheets?

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has finally forced corporations to examine the validity of their spreadsheets. They are beginning to understand the spreadsheet error literature, including what it tells them about the need for comprehensive spreadsheet testing. However, controlling for fraud will require a completely new set of capabilities, and a great deal of new research will be needed to deve...