Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002: Online Resources

Many online sources provide access to legal information concerning the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (PL 107-204, 116 Stat 745). The Act makes corporate officers responsible for earnings reports, forbids accounting firms from acting as consultants to accounting clients, and stiffens penalties for fraud. Below are descriptions of select resources and materials.

• U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC): At the top of the Laws & Regulations page, click on "Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002." You will then see links to the full-text of the Act in PDF format as well as a link to Sarbanes-Oxley Rulemaking and Reports. Scroll down this page to see titles of and links to documents, which are arranged by date and topic: Press Releases, FAQs, Final Rulemaking, Proposed Rulemaking, Other Releases, and Special Studies.

• Securities Lawyer's Deskbook: Published by the University of Cincinnati College of Law, it provides a table of Sections Affected by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Two separate tables are provided for added and amended sections, and entries are linked to the full-text of the section of the law affected.

• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA): administers the employee protection (or "whistleblower") provisions of fourteen statutes, including Section 806 of the Corporate and Criminal Fraud Accountability Act of 2002 (CCFA) (Sarbanes-Oxley Act). The fourth bulleted item under the heading "Regulations" on OSHA's Whistleblower Program page is 29 CFR Part 1980 - Procedures for the Handling of Discrimination Complaints under Section 806 of the CCFA of 2002 (Sarbanes-Oxley Act). Once you click on the link for 29 CFR Part 1980, you will be directed to a page that provides the options of searching by keyword or browsing a list of section titles with links to the individual CFR sections.

• Office of Adminstrative Law Judges (OALJ): Provides statistics in terms of how many SOX cases were decided in the OALJ by year.
  1. in the left hand side where it says "Docket Search"
  click on the drop down arrow box and go all the way down to SOX
  2. Highlight SOX and hit GO, it will pull up all the Sarbanes Oxley cases

  In addition, three commercial websites provide useful information:

  • National Law Journal: <http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/index.jsp> A publication that provides Federal circuit court decisions, verdicts, practitioners columns, coverage of legislative issues, and legal news from the business and private sectors. Recently, NLJ hosted in conjunction with Stanford University a panel discussion exploring the challenges posed for practitioners by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, “Sarbanes-Oxley: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.”
    <http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1134036309251>
    
  • Sarbanes-Oxley Center: The Act and Strategies for Compliance -- Resources from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) intended to provide a deeper understanding of the legislation and its impact on public companies. Includes the text of the law and the supporting SEC regulations, PwC's comments on both, PwC white papers and webcasts, as well as analysis and commentary <http://www.pwcglobal.com/Extweb/NewCoAtWork.nsf/docid/D0D7F79003C6D64485256CF30074D66C>. See also PwC's More Thought Leadership About Sarbanes-Oxley <http://www.pwcglobal.com/extweb/newcoatwork.nsf/docid/433E8F875A734F5085256FB900411C29>.
  • SOX-online: <http://www.sox-online.com/index.html> Described as the “Vendor-Neutral Sarbanes-Oxley Site,” it offers a collection of Sarbanes-Oxley information, resources, and news. Use the menu on the left side of the homepage to navigate resources divided by topic, such as Governance (covers Corporate & IT Governance, Ethics, and Nonprofits).