When Peregrine Financial collapsed earlier this month, a nagging question resurfaced. As in the implosion of Lehman Brothers, the fall of Bernard Madoff and other cases in recent years, many asked: Where were the accountants? That this question still arises could be seen as an indictment of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law, enacted 10 years ago on Monday. The law was a response to accountants’ fa ilures to sound the alarm about financial misconduct at Enron Corp, WorldCom and a host of other companies. But, lawyers and analysts say that for the most part Sarbanes-Oxley is working. It has strengthened auditing, made the accounting industry a better steward of financial standards, and fended off Enron-sized book-cooking disasters. Read Reuters report here.
