Post responses to two of your classmates. 2-3 sentences  

Allison: The Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act of 2002 is an act that was signed into law on July 30th, 2002 to help protect investors from corporations that are fraudulently reporting their financial records. The SOX Act of 2002 imposed new penalties to those committing fraud and made changed to the already existing security regulations. This act came as a result of three major financial scandals that occurred in the early 2000’s. These three cases invoked publicly traded companies including, Tyco International, WorldCom, and Enron Corporations. These three cases had a direct effect on the trust that investors had in corporations (Kenton, 2022). 

The SOX Act of 2002 came as an addition to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and other laws that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had in place. The SOX Act added four new major principals, including corporate responsibility, increased criminal punishment, accounting regulations, and new protections. Three major parts of the SOX Act are Sec 302, Sec 404, and Sec 802 (Kenton, 2022).

Sec 302 outline that senior corporate officers have to personally sign that the “company’s financials statements comply with SEC disclosure requirements and ‘fairly present in all material respects the financial condition and results of operations of the issuer’ at the time of the financial report” (Kenton, 2022). This shows that the senior corporate officers know what is being reported and are stating that it is accurate and not misleading, and if it is not stating they know they will be charged with criminal penalties that include prison (Kenton, 2022).

Sec 404 outlines that management and audits have to place into effect internal control and reporting methods. Companies have reported that does not have a good impact because it is expensive however the section is there to offer protection to investors (Kenton, 2022).

Sec 802 outlines three major rules that have a direct affect on the record keeping side of a company. They are directly apply to the destruction and falsifying of records, the retention period that records must be kept, and what records business have to store (Kenton, 2022). 

Kenton, W. (2022, May 8). Sarbanes-Oxley Act: What it does to protect investors. Investopedia. Retrieved September 21, 2022, from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sarbanesoxleyact.asp

Brianne:  

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was enacted to help protect the shareholders along with the public from accounting errors and fraudulent transactions in corporations.    

“The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 will change the processes for creating and adopting auditing, accounting, independence, ethics, and quality standards for CPAs that audit SEC registrants. There is every reason to believe that some of these standards will ultimately apply to audits of non registrants simply because they will be good standards. In addition, the operation of the new Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) will encompass discipline and inspections (peer reviews for auditors of SEC registrants). The Sarbanes-Oxley Act covers many items that will affect accounting principles and auditing standards for years into the future.” (Sarmiento)

Last week in my Forensic Accounting class, I learned that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2022 was created in large part to the Enron scandal. 

http://archives.cpajournal.com/2002/1202/features/f122002.htm