Аннотация:In roughly two years since the corporate meltdown began, federal and state regulators have initiated criminal fraud investigations involving dozens of corporations, including Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, HealthSouth, McKesson, and Qwest. To date, some ninety corporate owners, executives, and employees have been criminally charged, and the investigations are ongoing. It was against this backdrop that zeal for corporate governance reform gained unexpected momentum in Congress and resulted in the surprisingly quick enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Although its principal purpose is to address systemic weaknesses in corporate governance structures, Sarbanes-Oxley also augments prosecutorial tools available in major fraud cases.
