Sarbanes–Oxley Act
United States law covering finance and accountability
The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 is a United States federal law that mandates certain practices in financial record keeping and reporting for corporations. The act, Pub. L. 107–204 (text) (PDF), 116 Stat. 745, enacted July 30, 2002, also known as the "Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act" (in the Senate) and "Corporate and Auditing Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency Act" (in the House) and commonly abbreviated SOX or Sarbox, contains eleven sections that place requirements on all American public company boards of directors and management and public accounting firms. A number of provisions of the Act also apply to privately held companies, such as the willful destruction of evidence to impede a federal investigation.
The law was enacted as a reaction to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals, including Enron and WorldCom. The sections of the bill cover responsibilities of a public corporation's board of directors, add criminal penalties for certain misconduct, and require the Securities and Exchange Commission to create regulations to define how public corporations are to comply with the law.
Background
In 2002, Sarbanes–Oxley was named after bill sponsors U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) and U.S. Representative Michael G. Oxley (R-OH). To be "SOX compliant," top management must individually certify the accuracy of financial information. In addition, penalties for fraudulent financial activity are much more severe.
The public source identifies “Sarbanes–Oxley Act” as united States law covering finance and accountability. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sarbanes, Oxley and United.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q856418. VIAF identifies the subject as 178458782. The Library of Congress control number is no2002071668. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2002.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sarbanes–Oxley Act” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.