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Sarbanes-Oxley: SOX spins round the World
Over the five years since Sarbanes-Oxley has been enacted, it has received a good share of criticism for being too strict, too vague,… too much. But that hasn’t stopped other countries from studying it, and it some cases copying it.
In Canada the response to business scandals like Enron, Adelphia and Worldcom has been SOX-like legislation called Canadian Bill 198 and Multilateral Instrument 52-109 (2003) — or CSOX. CSOX copies elements of the US SOX initiative, including SOX Section 302 and the need for both the CEO and CFO of a company to provide regular certified filings.
Next year Japan too is expected to adopt SOX-like regulations that are being dubbed as JSOX. Any of 3800 foreign companies with subsidiaries in Japan will be subject to the new regulations.
From the IT perspective, compliance with these different country-specific regulations are not that different. A company capable of handling Sarbanes-Oxley will not have much difficulty in adding compliance to these country-specific flavors. But those companies that haven’t yet been set up to deal with SOX will need to first get past that huge milestone.
While many companies complain of the high cost of SOX, many other companies are seeing some of he principles of SOX as just being part of good business. SOX’s rigorous internal controls have made board rooms more accountable for both their actions as well as their inactions. The rules provide safeguards and an environment for investors which has fewer unknowns. SOX has also given IT departments a better foundation for building infrastructure that overall helps companies manage risk.
But many still wonder if the huge investment in SOX compliance (expected to reach over $26 billion by the end of 2007) was worth it. The debate will go on, and the debate isn’t confined to the US.
