Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today I am introducing the PCAOB Enforcement Transparency Act of 2013 along with my colleague Senator Grassley. This bill will allow the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, PCAOB, to make public disciplinary proceedings it has brought against auditors and audit firms earlier in the process. Slightly over 10 years ago, our markets fell victim to a series of massive financial reporting frauds, including those involving Enron and WorldCom. Public companies had produced fraudulent and materially misleading financial statements, which artificially drove their stock prices up and misrepresented their overall profitability. Once the fraud was discovered, investor confidence plummeted, as did the markets themselves. We all took a step back after this crisis and asked ourselves how such massive financial fraud in public reporting companies could have gone undetected for so long. The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs conducted a series of hearings on issues that were raised by the revelations raised by fraud at Enron and other public companies. The hearings produced consensus on a number of underlying causes, including weak corporate governance, a lack of accountability, and inadequate oversight of accountants charged with auditing a public company's financial statements. In order to address the gaps and structural weaknesses revealed by the investigation and hearings, the Senate passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in a 99 to 0 vote.…”