• Michael Volkov on Internal Investigations: Best Practices

    Guest Post by Michael Volkov In-House counsel and corporate compliance officers dodge bullets everyday as they stare down the barrels of aggressive prosecutors, regulators, civil litigants, whistleblowers, disgruntled employees and shareholders prodded by trial attorneys to file derivative suits at […]

  • Compliance Week Article: Koss Fraud Spotlights Small Filers’ Internal Control Issues

    An article in today’s Compliance Week, Koss Fraud Spotlights Small Filers’ Internal Control Issues (subscription required), quotes me on internal controls and the auditors as it relates to the huge fraud committed by VP of Finance Sue Sachdeva at Koss […]

  • But Sarbanes-Oxley Hasn’t Actually Reduced Fraud…

    My friend Francine McKenna wrote yesterday on her blog, re:The Auditors, about what Sarbanes-Oxley has accomplished: My contention is that Sarbanes-Oxley has at least raised the tone and tenor of the conversation about internal controls and about common sense, tried […]

  • The End of Sarbanes-Oxley?

    Auditors and consultants around the country would like to string me up for my vocal dislike of Sarbanes-Oxley. I frequently moan that the cost is too high, the results are too poor, and consumers are fooled into thinking there’s been […]

  • An average company wasted $1.7 million on SOX 404 Compliance last year

    Financial Executives International polled companies for the 7th year in a row to determine how much it costs to comply with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This year, they talked to 185 companies with average annual revenues of $4.7 […]

  • SEC fines have gone down

    The fines levied by the Securities and Exchange commission have fallen to their lowest level since 2002. Bloomberg reports that “fewer billion-dollar accounting-fraud cases” and “new policies for fining companies” are to blame. For the year ended September 30, the […]

  • SEC brings charges against auditors

    69 auditors have been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with issuing audit reports on the financial statements of public companies without first registering with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. The SEC has named 37 unregistered audit firms […]

  • Sarbanes-Oxley Five Years Later

    This week’s Wisconsin Law Journal column takes a look at the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which was put into law five years ago. The legislation has done some good things, but many have significant criticisms of it. The law was […]

  • 5 Years of Sarbanes-Oxley

    That’s right. We are fast approaching the 5 year anniversary of the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Who’s celebrating? Well surely the consultants and accountants who have made a fortune off SOX consulting are celebrating a bit. Over […]

  • Changes to Sarbanes-Oxley Rejected By Senate

    A proposed amendment to make the internal controls portion of Sarbanes-Oxley optional for smaller corporations was defeated in the U.S. Senate this week. Specifically, the change would have allowed companies with market value less than $700 million to opt out […]