DD Support Board and Research Team

[1manband]

They could at the very least gone after Scotty for signing all those Sarbanes-Oxley certifications.

This has been a major pet peeve with me for a very long time.

The original purpose of the Sarbanes-Oxley law was to provide prosecutors with a tool to more easily charge management of fraudulent companies with wrongdoing. IIRC, it stemmed from Jeff Skilling at Enron, where the DOJ had difficulty charging him with a specific crime and was ultimately only able to send him to prison for about 10 years. Through the signing of certifications, the SEC and DOJ would have an easy "slam-dunk" crime to charge company management with wrongdoing and keep them in line. Only later did Sarbanes morph into something almost completely unrecognizable, even to the two sponsors of the law who both voiced some reservations about what it ultimately became.

Ultimately, the SEC and DOJ have completely ignored the powerful tool that Sarbanes provided them. They can very easily charge any number of members of management of crooked companies with the false certifications charges, but yet do not. I blame Wall Street for lobbying against it, and the politicians and DOJ for allowing it to happen. One of their most powerful weapons against corporate fraud is available, but completely unused.