Sarbanes - Oxley Act of 2002 vs. The 8th Company Law Directive

Abstract

In 2001 and 2002 a wave of corporate and accounting scandals became known to the public. As a direct consequence of these frauds the Sarbanes - Oxley Act of 2002, also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002, was signed in to law. The main focus of Sarbanes - Oxley compliance is to ensure the accuracy of financial reporting and the systems that support this data. The law directly affected all US public traded companies and was costing millions to comply with. These costs led the European public companies to consider unlisting from the American stock market, not knowing that a European version (The 8th Company Law Directive) of the Act would come into force four years later. This project will focus on the comparison of these two laws using promise theory as a model to better see the similarities and differences and understand the relationship between the affected parties of both laws in the eyes of promises. We will finally relate the Sarbanes - Oxley to technology, more specifically policy based configuration management.