Foxes guarding the henhouse?
I do not feel that increasing auditing requirements has been an ethical solution to questionable audits. In fact, as is frequently the case when politicians get involved in trying to protect us from ourselves, this law has only resulted in more paper work and greater expense, while having little effect on fixing the problem that it was intended to address.
With the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, companies are spending a lot more money on both internal and external audits. This puts a smaller company at risk of closing due to the fact that their financial burden would be the same as a larger company and they don't have the resources to devote to completing these audits. Some larger international firms are also being feeling the effect of the law. For example, Porsche AG announced that it will not place their shares on the NYSE because it would fall under the law's jurisdiction, and since they already have an obligation to operate under the laws of their home country, they wouldn't be able to comply to both requirements. Surely, this was an unforeseen consequence of the law.
The only winners of this Act might be the ones who were part of the original scandals in 2001, the accountants and their accounting firms. Having more audits being completed by the same cast of characters would seem to invite the same results. Ultimately, companies will act in an ethical way when they see that it's in their best interest to do so. Surely, the examples of Enron and others who got caught up in their own lies and deceptions would serve as a warning to others about the consequenses of unethical business practices. DB