Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) has been law since July 2002 and the collapses and financial carnage created by Enron, Tyco International, WorldCom, Adelphia Communications, HealthSouth, and Cendant, may have lost their prominence in people’s minds. Bloomberg reports executives are becoming more vocal that SOX has become an overzealous exercise to contain and detect corporate corruption. Section 404 is the current battlefield.
“I would like to see it opened and revised. Sarbanes-Oxley has become extraordinarily expensive,” said David Chavern, vice president of capital markets at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. told Bloomberg.
The number of U.S. financial restatements climbed 28 percent over 2003 to 2004, prompted by SOX, according to the Huron Consulting Group. Office Depot CEO Steve Odland, told Bloomberg, “You have more independent eyes scrutinizing the decision making and the financial statements of the companies.” Odland is also the chairman of the Business Roundtable’s corporate governance task force.
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