Sarbanes-Oxley Act Research Paper

Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002

Karla Azcue

ACC 120-09

Mr. Donald Senior

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is one of the most important legislations passed in the 21st century effecting financial practice and corporate governance. This act was passed on July 30, 2002 thanks to Representative Michael Oxley a republican from Ohio and Senator Paul Sarbanes a democrat from Maryland. They both passed two different bills that pertain to the same problem which had to do with corporation's auditing accountability and financial fraud problems within corporations. One was bill (S. 2673) brought by Senator Sarbanes and the other bill (H. R. 3763) brought by Representative Oxley. Both bills where passed separately one by the house and the other by the senate but after WorldCom revealed to the public that they had overstated its earnings "by more than $72 billion dollars during the past five quarters." (en.wikipedia.org) the house and the senate decided to form a conference committee