It took just five weeks after the WorldCom accounting scandal erupted in 2002 for Congress to pass, and President George W. Bush to sign, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. That law required public companies to make sure their internal controls against fraud were not full of holes.
It took three more years for Bernard Ebbers, the man who built WorldCom into a giant, to be sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in the fraud.
Mr. Ebbers will be 85 years old before he is eligible for release from prison. He may be freed, however, before the law is ever enforced on the vast majority of American companies. A Congressional committee voted this week to repeal a crucial part of the law. Other parts are also under attack.
Sarbanes-Oxley was passed, almost unanimously, by a Republican-controlled House and a Democratic-controlled Senate. Now a Democratic Congress is gutting it with the apparent approval of the Obama administration.
The House Financial Services Committee this week approved an amendment to the Investor Protection Act of 2009 — a name George Orwell would appreciate — to allow most companies to never comply with the law, and mandating a study to see whether it would be a good idea to exempt additional ones as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/business/06norris.html