These types of provisions have come up from time-to-time over the past years and I always find it interesting and disturbing at the same time. The provisions are typically created by people such as Reps. Scott Garrett (R., N.J.) and John Adler (D., N.J.), who have not had the opportunity to see the detailed work produced by the accounting departments of the world; the work that shareholders ultimately place their reliance upon when making investing decisions. I see this type of work every day and I can tell you, most pre-SOX companies are at best moderately sure that their financial statements are correct which is downright scary. Remember, the companies in question choose to go public and allow outsiders to invest in their company to make money; they aren’t victims.

I have been implementing Sarbanes-Oxley since 2004 and my experiences have proven that there is a positive return on investment (ROI) for employees and investors alike. The ROI includes shorter close durations, less post-close adjustments because the numbers are correct the first time, fewer accounting resources needed to get the work done (this is a huge misnomer, accounting department resources do not need to increase because of SOX and I have personally seen it decrease as a direct result of a SOX implementation), etc. This list is endless. One of our clients was successful in reducing their audit fees by $900K annually after we helped them implement controls that fixed their accounting issues and caused their externals auditors to sign off on their financials faster. This particular client now pays $6,000 annually for its SOX compliance work and their external audit durations have been reduced to less than two weeks. Companies of $150MM in revenue typically only need one person to assist them with their SOX work (rather than the 3-5 that it used to be that helped caused your hourly fees to be near $1000) and the documentation effort can be done in less than a week.
With all of the benefits, I am very unclear on how and why the merits of SOX compliance for public companies are still being debated.
All my best,
Teresa Bockwoldt MBA, MST
CEO & Co-Founder
Vibato, LLC
655 Montgomery Street, 5th Floor, Suite 540 San Francisco, CA 94111
Office: 415.240.4867 | Mobile: 707.477.0008 | Fax: 888.407.7725
tbockwoldt@vibato.com I SOX Compliance Made Simple® | http://www.vibato.com

And of course the crybaby conservatives were most likely cheering when conservatives passed this!

Conservatives=Hypocrites

It was a dumb thing from the beginning, yep, one for Obama.

This is all Bush's fault! If he had never signed that bill in the first place Obama wouldn't have to clean up his mess. Furthermore, if Bush had regulated the likes of Enron, none of this would've ever happened. It all comes down to Bush. It is Bush's fault because he didn't act, and it is Bush's fault because he acted. Oh and by the way, using the word boy is racist! You may joke about it, but there are code words for African American and using them are racist. I submit the following so that you all know:
Boy
Skinny
Socialist
Communist
TOTUS
Birth Certificate
Stupid
Basketball Player
Football Player
Player
Senator
President
"I disagree with the President"
Obama Administration
Person
Human
Truth

OK, give (a small) one to the White House. This over-reaction to Enron has done nothing to help investors.

However, it has provided/saved many public accounting jobs.....