Sarbanes Oxley Act

Requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act

After the Sarbanes-Oxley Act became effective in July 2002, the requirements on the finance publicity have intensified seriously for about 300 German enterprises. Primarily concerned are a number of enterprises as well as about 20 DAX enterprises with a second listing at the New York stock exchange or the Nasdaq whose abroad resident group upper company is noted down at an American stock exchange. This results in higher integration requirements and external finance reporting for the enterprises concerned. The organizational requirements for the internal workflows and their controls have been intensified.

A look at the legal framework conditions shows that the management is obliged to create an internal control system able to work for the finance reporting. Therefore all internal processes must be documented as far as they have influence on the finance reporting. Finally the auditor must judge and certify the efficiency of the control system. He also has to judge and certify the judging/assessment of the management - for the first time at the end of the year 2004.

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