Radian Compliance Management Services

Small Changes Won’t Do for Sarbox

A former economic advisor for the Reagan administration says the incoming Congress would best serve the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s authors by repealing the law. The list of problems is the usual: Audit and compliance costs are exponentially greater than first predicted. Smaller companies are going private. Foreign companies are leaving the U.S. exchanges or opting to stay away. The fear of personal liability has made company executives wary. The Free Enterprise Fund’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board — and Sarbanes-Oxley by extension — may force Congress to act on comprehensive corporate reform law if the legislature doesn’t do so on its own. With proposed changes, an AMR Research analyst says larger companies will feel “a sense of relief” rather than “real financial relief.” Smaller companies could see costs reduced by as much as 40 percent.