Sarbanes-Oxley is the most invasive business regulation of the new century. It is enormously complicated. It was designed to prevent many of the abuses of the Enron era, particularly those related to accounting and the ethical duties of corporate boards of directors. Sarbanes-Oxley is based on public disclosure of company information.
Sarbanes-Oxley appears to be working. American International Group, [A-I-G], is a big insurance company. It’s C-E-O has been telling investors that A-I-G won’t have to take any big write-downs due to the problems in credit markets.
Thanks to the Sarbanes-Oxley disclosure requirements, the public was told that the auditors spotted a deficiency in A-I-G’s financial books. The result: A-I-G had to take a $4,880,000,000 write-down.
One Trackback/Pingback
[...] federal business regulation law to pass during the Bush administration. Earlier this year, I reported on a case that proves this law is both necessary and effective. An insurance company, AIG, had to take a [...]
Post a Comment