“[R]eally, when you get down to it, the guys at Enron never would have done this. This is so blatant, so extreme,” Gates said of state governments’ accounting practices generally. “Is anyone paying attention to some of the things these guys do? They borrow money — they’re not supposed to, but they figure out a way — they make you pay more in withholding to help their cashflow out, they sell off the assets, they defer the payments, they sell off the revenues from tobacco.” [HuffPo]
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Exclusive: We Know What Mark Weinberger Will Be Doing That He’s Officially Out at EY
- Adrienne Gonzalez
- July 1, 2019
No one was as surprised as we were when the news broke late last year […]
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You Don’t Want to Imagine the World Without Sarbanes-Oxley, Says Michael Oxley
- Caleb Newquist
- March 25, 2010
We really don’t foresee any scenario where a politician would denounce a piece of legislation with his/her name on it but since the MSM has the tendency to bludgeon the Enron/Andersen/Sarbanes-Oxley mantra into everyone’s gray matter, Ox figured he’d better get on record saying that SOx might be the most important moment in U.S. history since the Louisiana Purchase.
When asked if pols can ever stop corporate malfeasance, Ox more or less, compared it to Law & Order, “We have laws against homicide and people kill one another every day. That doesn’t mean that you back off and stop fighting.”
When asked if SOx was a success, we expected a resound, “You bet your ass it’s a success!” but he was a slightly more reserved saying that you should only imagine a world without SOx if you want to scare the bejeezus out yourself:
Sarbanes-Oxley was all about accountability and transparency and restoring investor confidence. We lost almost $8 trillion in market capitalization in 2001 and 2002 because of fraud at places like Enron and Worldcom.
Even though the recent meltdown has hurt confidence again, things could have been much worse if accounting regulations had been as lax as financial regulations.
There’s the magic E word! Maybe we should try focusing on the Tonys as opposed to being so negative when it comes to Enron?
So what about this financial regulatory reform, is this a drag or what?
Critics and the financial press said that Sarbanes-Oxley was rushed through, even though it actually took eight months from the time of the first hearing on Enron until the passage of the bill.
Now, more than a year since the financial crisis, Congress hasn’t dealt with regulation and people are criticizing politicians for moving too slowly. But by taking more time Congress has had a chance to delve into complicated and multi-faceted issues like too-big-to-fail, over-the-counter derivatives, and bank regulations. This is heavy lifting and I give the Congress a lot of credit for working hard to put something together.
Do you think Congress would work on something for eight whole months and it would end up being a failure? If elected representatives work on something for that long it’s bound to be an unmitigated success.
Is Sarbanes-Oxley a failure? [Fortune]
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Silvercorp Metals Chairman Would Like These Gutless, Anonymous Letter-Writing Short-sellers to Man Up and Show Their Faces
- Caleb Newquist
- September 14, 2011
A couple of weeks ago, Silvercorp Metals responded to an anonymous letter that alleged that the company was engaged in some dodgy accounting practices. Understandably, the company was irked by this little stunt, responding that it was complete BS and due to some short-sellers trying to take advantage of the rash of sketchy accounting scandals involving companies that have a connection to China.
Now, a second anonymous letter has appeared and the company is again going on a PR offensive to calm everyone down because, really you guys, nothing is fucked here and that these reptiles need to come out and start cooperating with investigators if they’re really concerned about things outside their wallets. And so everyone gets the message loud and clear, this was not delivered by some everyday flak but by the Chairman of the company, Dr. Rui Feng:
“I ask shareholders to exercise common sense in assessing whether these allegations of “fraud” against the Company have any merit whatsoever in the face of very significant revenues, tax payments and dividends, and particularly when the accusations are made anonymously by parties whose only interest is in depressing the Company’s share price. I invite the authors of the anonymous allegations to come out of the shadows and participate with the regulators in their investigations, if their concerns truly extend beyond the profitability of their short positions.”
Furthermore, the company’s independent committee has engaged a KPMG Forensic team to help get to the bottom of this. And they certainly know the traits of fraudsters when they see them. Everyone just chill out.
[via Silvercorp Metals]