Passage of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act created controversy and debate over the delicate line between corporate compliance and transparency and burdensome regulatory costs. To explore these and other issues affecting business, the ACCF/SBE Council hosted a forum on Capitol Hill on July 11.

Representative Tom Feeney (R-FL), author of H.R. 5405, a bill to reduce the burdens of the implementation of section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley, was the keynote speaker at the session. Professor Eric Talley, Professor of Law, UC Berkeley (Boalt Hall) School of Law, and Senior Economist, Rand Corporation, spoke on “The Empirical Effects of SOX: What Have We Learned (and What Have We Not?).” A panel of experts from the private sector discussed the impact Sarbanes-Oxley is having on business. Panelists were Dan Cummings, managing director and co-head of Equity Capital Markets for the Americas, Merrill Lynch; Michael Paese, executive vice president and chief administrative officer, Mercantile Bankshares Corp.; Daniel G. Pocrnich, executive vice president and CFO, Wells Fargo Equipment Finance, Inc.; Glenn Tyranski, senior vice president for Financial Compliance, NYSE Regulation, Inc.; and Woodie Neiss, co-founder and CFO, FLAVORx, Inc. Alan Murray, assistant managing editor, The Wall Street Journal, moderated the session.

To hear audio clips of the speakers' presentations, click on the names below:

Introduction
Prof Eric Talley
Dan Cummings
Woodie Neiss
Michael Paese
Daniel Pocrnich
Rep Tom Feeney
Glenn Tyranski

To see Professor Talley’s power point presentation, please click here.

Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) tells forum participants that the legislation he introduced, H.R. 54045, may “end up doing some good” by motivating regulatory action. Forum panelists pictured, left to right: Glenn Tyranski, senior vice president for Financial Compliance, NYSE Regulation, Inc.; Dan Cummings, managing director and co-head of Equity Capital Markets for the Americas, Merrill Lynch; and Daniel G. Pocrnich, executive vice president and CFO, Wells Fargo Equipment Finance.

Professor Eric Talley, Professor of Law, UC Berkeley (Boalt Hall) School of Law, and Senior Economist, Rand Corporation, shares his findings on whether Sarbanes-Oxley affects firms decisions to go private. Pictured also are forum moderator Alan Murray, assistant managing editor, The Wall Street Journal, far left, and panelist Michael Paese, executive vice president and chief administrative officer, Mercantile Bankshares Corp.