I’ll tell you my opinion.
Maybe because the regulators in DC today and tomorrow were/are the counsel of the Banks. So how can you prosecute the CEO’s? I’m sure the former CEO’s asked for direction or advice from these lawyers. So how can you prosecute? Prosecute whom? Make any sense? Conflict!
Reuters-
Karen Seymour had high hopes for Sarbanes-Oxley. Ten years ago, when the law was passed, Seymour was chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, which is regarded as the country’s most prolific prosecutor of financial crimes. When she read Sarbanes-Oxley’s certification provisions, which specify that CEOs and CFOs can be sent to prison for falsely certifying corporate financial reports and reports on internal controls, she thought she finally had a way of getting at wrongdoing by top officials. “I thought it was going to be a really good tool,” she said in an interview this week. “But it never really developed.”
As Sarbanes-Oxley marks its 10th anniversary on Monday, its promise of holding CEOs and CFOs criminally responsible remains unfulfilled. The law states that if top corporate executives knowingly sign off on a false financial report, they’re subject to a prison term of up to 10 years and a fine of up to $1 million, with penalties escalating to 20 years and $5 million if their misconduct is willful. After accounting scandals at Enron, WorldCom and a host of other public companies, SOX’s certification provisions, according to Seymour and other former prosecutors, seemed like a clean, simple way to tie CEOs and CFOs to corporate crimes.
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