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Home > News & Events > Events Calendar > Sarbanes-Oxley, Six Years After: Societal Benefit or Economic Burden
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emailTuesday, May 6, 2008
Sarbanes-Oxley, Six Years After: Societal Benefit or Economic Burden
Sarbanes-Oxley, Six Years After:
Societal Benefit or Economic Burden?
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
1:00 - 2:30 pm
LittauerBuilding,
Fainsod Room
HarvardKennedy School
Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 after the
highly-publicized frauds at Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco exposed
significant problems with accounting fraud, conflicts of interest
and, incentive compensation practices, which resulted in over $500
billion in market value declines and triggered investor distrust in
the market. The Act's goals included: ensuring accuracy of
financial statements through more extensive and strict accounting,
auditing, and internal control obligations; reducing conflicts of
interest that may induce fraud through independence rules for
auditing firms, company executives, and board directors; and
creating disincentives to engage in corporate fraud or illegality
by imposing heavier criminal penalties. However, the Act has been
highly controversial as an instance of government over-regulation
and has imposed arguably burdensome and excessive compliance costs
on regulated companies.
During this discussion, Steve Wagner will discuss the appropriate
level of government regulation of business by focusing on the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act: What are the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act? Has it been a societal benefit or an economic burden? Has the
Act made another Enron unlikely? What are some reforms that could
add to its benefits or reduce costs? Is government regulation the
best method to prevent corporate fraud?
***
Steve Wagner is the managing partner for Deloitte & Touche USA
LLP's U.S. Center for Corporate Governance, where he leads the
firm's integrated strategy on governance, risk, and compliance.
Steve's vision for the Center for Corporate Governance is to
provide a platform for education, dialogue and thought-leadership
that will help advance collaborative efforts between corporations,
the accounting profession, academia and government in the area of
corporate governance. He assumed this role in June 2005.
- Location:Fainsod Room
- Date:Tuesday, May 6, 2008
-
Time:1:00 PM
