Good point, Sarbanes Oxley is supposed to be practised very widely in states less so in UK. I wonder how such a bubble was created in the housing market and how the mess in the secondary mortgage market developed unchecked if these practices were being observed and enforced strictly. The obvious answer is that maybe only lip service is being paid to SO.
Sarbanes oxley is a crock of shyt.
the funniest thing with it was that after teh enron fallout it was established because oh so much negative light was on accounting and audit folks...and guess who helps the damn companies with SO compliance. the same damn companies.
Someone willc ome and say that SO was not designed to deal with this stuff and that can be partially true, but all that means is that the architects fel short of protecting shareholders and investors, they may have solved one problem while ignoring many others.