The Sarbanes-Oxley statute, which the United States enacted in an atmosphere of extraordinary agitation in 2002, is one of the most influential-and controversial-pieces of corporate legislation ever to have hit a statute book. Its original aim, on the face of it, was modest: to improve the accountability of managers to shareholders, and hence to calm the raging crisis of confidence in American capitalism aroused by the scandals at Enron, WorldCom and other companies. The law's methods, however, were anything but modest, and its implications, for good or ill, are going to be far-reaching.
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