After several years of lobbying, Wall Street appears on the brink of a victory in its campaign to water down provisions of the hated Sarbanes-Oxley law that regulates company accounts.
The legislation, introduced in 2002 in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals, has led to a big increase in the costs of running a public company, and been blamed for driving foreign companies away from the New York Stock Exchange.
Regulators are expected to unveil rule changes that will cut the number of checks demanded by company auditors.
Under a provision of the SarbOx laws, companies must list the controls they have in place to prevent fraud and ensure accurate accounts. The list might span everything from revenue recognition policies to who has keys to rooms were financial data is kept. Companies complain that compiling the list, and then having it verified by auditors, has added millions of dollars to the cost of maintaining a stock market listing.
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