Corporate backlash over Sarbanes-Oxley

By JENNY STRASBURG
San Francisco Chronicle
29-MAR-05

In mid-2002, amid a national wave of revulsion over scandals at corporations such as Enron and WorldCom, Congress overwhelmingly passed tough new accounting and public-disclosure rules intended to curb abuses that cost shareholders billions of dollars.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is a sweeping piece of legislation that regulates, among other things, how companies report financial results and disclose executive compensation. What's more, the law holds both company executives and external auditors directly accountable for the accuracy of financial reports and seeks to protect employees who blow the whistle on suspected fraud.

Now there's a welling backlash against Sarbanes-Oxley. And the fiercest ire of business is focused on four paragraphs, about 170 words, buried in the center of the voluminous text.

See full Article.