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Monday February 07, 2005

When is Sarbanes Oxley not Sarbanes Oxley?

Answer: When it's in the UK.

A point of clarification first. As those of you who live in the land of the free doubtless already know, Sarbanes Oxley is a piece of legislation designed to provide a framework against the kind of 'imaginative' accounting used during the Enron scandal and similar events. It's a tough piece of legislation, difficult to implement and with the added benefit that if you make a mess of it, your CxOs will end up in jail.

Now, 'Sarbox' (as it is affectionately known, although it sounds more like a highly lethal virus...) also applies to any company with a representation on the American stock exchange, or a big number of US stock holders; thus big companies in the good old UK of GB will have to comply too, at a big cost. Already there have been grumblings in Europe, though that could be down to the sausages.

More interesting for us UK chaps, is the upcoming 'UK Companies Act', which bears more than a striking resemblance to the Sarbanes Oxley legislation. The big difference is this though. If you muck up Sarbox in the US you will end up in jail, your career in tatters and your company facing big fines. If you muck up the UK Companies ACT you might, well, almost certainly, get a visit from the chaps upstairs and a sharp ticking off.

How much the UK will spend up spending on legislative compliance remains to be seen. Afterall, you're not going to spend a whole bunch of money on a system to help you achieve legislative compliance when the only risk you're running is being summoned to an informal drinkie with the boss...

( Feb 07 2005, 04:48:59 PM GMT / Feb 07 2005, 04:26:36 PM GMT ) Permalink Comments [0]
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