Dennis Kennedy

While Sarbanes Oxley (or SarbOx or SOX, depending on your preference) can seem, well, so 2004, an article in CIO Insight called "SarbOx Complications Overwhelm Preparations" does a great job of illustrating how the devil is in the details. This article gives a verry practical look at the real world consequences of SarbOx compliance. Interestingly, I didn't see anything in there about lawyers helping out in the process.

The money quote:

Compounding the catch-up costs is the fact that the Securities and Exchange Commission has provided little leadership over exactly what the scope of SOX should be, and as a result, "the audit firms have jumped in and decided what they want," says Tillman of ARMA. "The CEO doesn't want to go to jail, so he says, 'Pay the auditor.' It's a recipe for disaster." Because internal and external audit teams have different definitions of compliance—and methodologies for achieving it—a costly and time-consuming tug-of-war ensues. "Auditor A does it one way, auditor B does it another, and they will never admit the other is right, because then the billable hours go down," says Blue Rhino's Travatello.

I guarantee that this article will give you a lot to think about, as SarbOx consequences often do.

[Originaily published on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

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