November 17, 2006
COX Running Ahead of Recent Political Pressure on Section 404
Hold your breath! The December 13th SEC meeting on Section 404 proves to be interesting. Since the upset in both houses of congress, there has been renewed attention on Section 404. Christopher Cox is hard at work on this topic with the PCAOB.
"Christopher Cox, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, on Thursday told attendees at a London international securities regulators event that upcoming modifications to the controversial Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (Sarbox) will be significant, and they’ll be meant to reduce associated costs to businesses while continuing to protect investors.... “Those changes will be aimed at ensuring that the internal-control audit is top-down, risk-based, and focused on what truly matters to the integrity of a company’s financial statements,” Cox said, according to the AP."
Smaller companies will benefit most from the upcoming changes to the Audit Standards. Cox is very impressive in his dealings with all these highly motivated forces. The SEC is doing the right thing. We have financial transparency and there is no going back.
In our work with small to mid-sized clients, we have never seen one instance where there was not improvement in process, fraud prevention etc by going through this exercise. If the SEC can get a grip on external auditors, then I think the legislation has huge benefits.
If your company is listed on US or Canadian exchanges and needs to comply with the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 and/or MI 52-109 cost effectively, see http://www.issuescentral.com/ to learn more about Compliance Playbook®. For companies headquartered in Canada and listed on Canadian or US exchanges, go the website of our exclusive Canadian distributor, Thomson Carswell, http://www.compliancepartner.ca/ to learn more about Compliance Partner(tm).
"Christopher Cox, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, on Thursday told attendees at a London international securities regulators event that upcoming modifications to the controversial Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (Sarbox) will be significant, and they’ll be meant to reduce associated costs to businesses while continuing to protect investors.... “Those changes will be aimed at ensuring that the internal-control audit is top-down, risk-based, and focused on what truly matters to the integrity of a company’s financial statements,” Cox said, according to the AP."
Smaller companies will benefit most from the upcoming changes to the Audit Standards. Cox is very impressive in his dealings with all these highly motivated forces. The SEC is doing the right thing. We have financial transparency and there is no going back.
In our work with small to mid-sized clients, we have never seen one instance where there was not improvement in process, fraud prevention etc by going through this exercise. If the SEC can get a grip on external auditors, then I think the legislation has huge benefits.
If your company is listed on US or Canadian exchanges and needs to comply with the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 and/or MI 52-109 cost effectively, see http://www.issuescentral.com/ to learn more about Compliance Playbook®. For companies headquartered in Canada and listed on Canadian or US exchanges, go the website of our exclusive Canadian distributor, Thomson Carswell, http://www.compliancepartner.ca/ to learn more about Compliance Partner(tm).
