From The Economist print edition

Jul 26th 2007 | NEW YORK

Sarbanes-Oxley

Satoshi Kambayashi

Corporate America is learning how to live with the tough regulations introduced after the collapse of Enron.

FOR the leaders of corporate America it has been five long years. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, widely known as SOX, was signed into law on July 30th 2002 by George Bush, who called its tough new rules the “most far-reaching reforms of American business practices since Franklin Roosevelt was president”. The hope was to restore public confidence in American business, which had been badly shaken by huge corporate scandals, such as those which led to the bankruptcies of Enron and WorldCom. Read more »

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Internal control means different things to different people. This causes confusion among business people, legislators, regulators and others. Resulting miscommunication and different expectations cause problems within an enterprise. Read more »

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What is strategic planning and why is it so important? Read more »

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In other sections of this web-site there is discussion and information about C-SOX, Risk Management and Strategic Planning – all of which have been highlighted as top priorities for senior financial managers these days. There are two areas that we would like to point out – one is an emerging accounting development that will significantly change Canadian GAAP in the upcoming years (International Financial Reporting Standards), and another is a time saving, value adding process that will provide significant benefits to any organization (Performance Metrics). Read more »

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ERM is an evolving discipline that companies are using to ensure that risk management becomes pervasive throughout an organization. Read more »

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The bankruptcies of Enron in 2001 and Worldcom in 2002 were due, in large part, from financial reporting irregularities. The sheer magnitude of Enron’s collapse (Enron had revenues of over $100 billion), the nature of some of their accounting practices, and complicity of other firms who turned a “blind eye” to the questionable transactions, created a crisis in confidence for investors who rely upon the financial statements of publicly traded companies in making investment decisions. Read more »

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