This is one !*%$# of a bad law. Here’s just some of John Berlau’s take on the Act (from the April 11 issue of NR), three years after its unfortunate passage (a bonanza for accounting firms, but a profit- and productivity-strangler for businesses):

But what’s good for the Big Four isn’t necessarily good for America. Other businesses, and ultimately the economy as a whole, are footing the bill for this regulation-driven auditing boom. Mounting evidence shows that the accounting-industry growth generated by Sarbanes-Oxley is coming at the expense of productivity, new jobs, and innovation in the general business world. A survey by Korn/Ferry International found that the law cost Fortune 1000 companies an average of $5.1 million in compliance expenses last year. For middle-market public companies, the law firm Foley & Lardner found that the act has increased the “cost of being public” — everything from audit fees to director insurance — by 130 percent. Substantial man-hours have also been diverted to Sarbanes-Oxley from other, more productive tasks. The industry group Financial Executives International found that the average firm was spending at least 30,700 man-hours a year on compliance with this law. As a result, a number of small U.S. and big foreign firms are rushing to deregister from U.S. stock exchanges — a blow to the U.S. capital markets, and, in turn, to the smaller U.S. companies that depend on these capital markets for financing.

You really must read Berlau’s entire piece – it’s great stuff. Of course, to do that, you must subscribe to NR–or even better, to NR Digital. That you can (and should!) do, now, and securely, here.