Sarbox and financial statement fraud

Sarbanes-Oxley was intended primarily to combat financial fraud. But with Sarbox, we've all gotten used to some unintended consequences. In that vein, some recent findings from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners has raised brows. The study found that companies with Sarbanes-Oxley mandated controls suffered greater losses from financial statement fraud than those without such controls, CFO.com reports. The report looked at various controls: management certification of financial statements, the use of external audit firms, the use of independent audit committees, management reviews of internal controls and the presence of anti-fraud hotlines. Only hotlines were correlated with a reduction in the median loss stemming from fraud. One explanation is that if an executive wants to really commit a crime, he usually can outwit the system. The good news is that Sarbox had a big impact on reducing other types of crime, like asset misappropriation and corruption.  

For more:
- here's the CFO.com article

Related Article:
E*Trade offers to reimburse losses to fraud