Chairman Christopher Cox, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Good morning, and welcome to the SEC.
I'm pleased to be here for this first meeting of the Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting. I want to thank the members and observers of the Committee for agreeing to serve. I particularly want to thank the Committee's Chairman — Bob Pozen — for his leadership.
Earlier this week, we celebrated the five-year anniversary of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The stated purpose of that Act was to "protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures." Among its many provisions, the Act presciently called for examination of ways to combat growing complexity in financial reporting, including calling for studies on the use of principles-based accounting systems and disclosures regarding off-balance sheet transactions.
These resulted in well-thought-out reports to Congress on ways financial reporting could be improved — many of which have already been implemented or are being implemented. But this work was only a beginning. We have continued our efforts by joining with the FASB and the PCAOB in an all-out War on Complexity in accounting.
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