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公司法的国际视野:对美国《萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》的简要评述
发表时间:2020-04-15 11:13:06   来源:贵州圣伦达律师事务所 
文\ 雷雨航 律师
 2002年,为应对安然等一系列财务丑闻事件,重新树立起投资者对美国资本市场的信心,美国国会通过了《萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》。此法案不仅对美国资本市场产生重大影响,也被中国、日本、加拿大和南非等国的司法主权所借鉴,在世界引起巨大反响。2006年7月15日,我国企业内部控制标准委员会经国务院批准正式成立,拉起了中国版"萨班斯法案"的序幕。故而,研究探讨《萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》有助于加强对公司法相关的公司内部控制框架的理解与掌握,提高公司治理的国际层面法律认识。
 
 
 
 
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(图为美国安然公司前董事长肯尼思·莱2002年2月12日出席听证会时的资料照片,他指控犯有11项罪行,其中包括共谋欺诈、欺骗股民、银行欺诈和虚报经营业绩等)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Furthermore, PCAOB commits to precisely and unbiasedly report in audits. Therefore, it can be argued that the establishment of PCAOB might critically change the audit mode of US-listed companies.  In addition to Title 1, the other specific essential rules from Title 2 to Title 6 may include: 
(1)'Corporate Responsibility for Financial Reports' set by Section 302 
(3)'Management Assessment of Internal Controls' set by Section 404 
 
 
 
(2)‘Civil action to protect against retaliation in fraud cases’ set by Section 806 
3. The General Review of the Critical Features of SOX
Firstly, provided by the aforementioned provisions, it can be argued that the act mainly related to rules of accounting, audit and corporate governance means US appropriate law supervision turned over from disclosure to substantive supervision.  In addition, from the whole structure of the law-making of SOX, improving the reliability of financial reporting, such as PCAOB establishing, the incompatibility of advisory and auditing services or responsible partner rotation, is listed in the first three titles of the act, and it also accounts for one-third of the text length. Therefore, it results in that SOX would probably look close to accounting and audit reforming bill. 
Secondly, however, excepting for the reforms of audit and accounting, SOX also focuses on the responsibilities of corporate management. For example, SOX efforts to enhance the internal control of corporates, especially the fiduciary responsibility of shareholders. The enhancement would possibly be realised via the framework built in order to prevent conflicts between the interests of the company’s top management and the overall interests of the companies.
Furthermore, some provisions, such as Section 302, Section 401 and Section 404, is to develop procedures and policies to address risks and establish the bottom line for authorisation and responsibility.  Thus, SOX, considered as a mode of corporate internal control, had been learned by other jurisdictions just like Japan, Canada and South Africa before several years ago. 
Thirdly, another significant reform of SOX is to strengthen criminal penalties on the corporate executives and white-collars which acted in violation of law in corporate operations. For example, in addition to previous Section 802 and Section 806, Section 906  and Section 1107  of SOX also set the criminal penalties about the violations of CEO/CFO in financial statement certification or the retaliation against whistle-blowers. Some scholars argue that these terms directly affect specific crimes and can avoid corporate crimes to a certain extent.
Overall, SOX aims at how to avoid false reporting of audit and accounting and corruption of corporate internality. So objectively speaking, by the reliable statics from some surveys, the role of SOX may have reached the idea of lawmakers to some extent.  However, the certain corporates and the practitioners of finance oppose SOX and imply that some of the contents of the bill are too strict and it would be logically chaotic due to time rush.  
Besides, the critics believe that the strict requirements of SOX may have increased the audit costs of enterprises, especially small businesses, and reduced the interest of companies from other countries to invest and list on the US capital market.  Furthermore, a part of the critics thinks the market itself should have developed the solutions to corporate collapses in the early 21st century. In other words, the argument claims that the unnecessary intervention of public powers may have been harmful to the market environment.
4. The comments on the reaction of critics 
Debatably, the reaction of critics, who believes the market should have been allowed to develop its solutions to the corporate collapses of the beginning of the 21st century, could be a lack of evidence and unreasonable. This view may have been negated by the lessons from the scandals of companies such as Enron and WorldCom.
The main reason to criticise the viewpoint is that the capital market would probably be negative to change the governance structure of enterprises without the forces from externality such as laws. The fundamental cause may be that the changes would not be profitable for the company executives and broads before the intervention of SOX.  Thus, that is to say, that the interests of enterprise managers, an agent to control the operations of companies, is conflicted with the interests of these enterprises themselves and the shareholders which play roles of principal. Theoretically speaking, this essential conflict of interest is called the Principal-agency Problem. 
Without the system designed of SOX to minimise the effects of the Principal-agency Problem, perhaps the executives of the enterprises have neither enough motivations nor robust powers to reform the structure of internal governance adopted by corporates in the past many decades. At the meantime, the public or the shareholders may have no path to promote this reform as well. From the perspective, it would be imaginably arduous for the capital market to create its solutions to face the Principal-agency Problem.
The last but not least, another reason to disagree the critics would be Negative Externality existing widely in the nature commerce surroundings without regulations of legislation and policy.  Negative externality here means the corporate behaviours may affect other individuals or businesses, so that other individuals or businesses pay extra costs, but the latter cannot get the corresponding compensation. For boards of directors and corporate executives, all employees, shareholders or other stakeholders are the objectives that bear the consequences of corporate behaviours.  In order to enhance their profits, corporate management would transfer the costs to impose on the stakeholders. Therefore, only robust law frameworks could avoid situations.
5. Conclusion
In short, it could be concluded that Sarbanes-Oxley Act might be an act that focuses on the reforms in the three fields including the rules of audit and accounting, the structure of corporate governance and criminal penalties on corporate executives and white-collars. Furthermore, due to the traditional Principal-Agency Problem and Negative Externality exposed in the Scandals of Enron, WorldCom and other companies, the fact proved that the idea insisting that the problems can be solved through the market own mechanism might be only an unreasonable hypothesis. Hence, SOX might have been an active resort for US Congress at the time at which it was published though it has been controversial until now.
References

 

 

 

Bargeron L and others, 'Sarbanes-Oxley And Corporate Risk-Taking' (2010) 49 Journal of Accounting and Economics
Christensen B, 'Keeping Pace with SOX Compliance: COSO, Costs, And The PCAOB' (2015) 51 EDPACS
Dey A, 'The Chilling Effect of Sarbanes–Oxley: A Discussion of Sarbanes–Oxley And Corporate Risk-Taking' (2010) 49 Journal of Accounting andEconomics
Gupta P, 'Sarbanes-Oxley: The Law, Its Role and Its Critics'[2009] SSRN Electronic Journal
Hefendehl R, 'Enron, Worldcom, And the Consequences: BusinessCriminal Law Between Doctrinal Requirements and The Hopes of Crime Policy'(2004) 8 Buffalo Criminal Law Review
Miller S, 'Governance Mechanisms as Moderators Of Agency Costs InA Pre-SOX Environment' (2011) 7 Journal of Business & Economics Research(JBER)
Salzberger W, 'Sarbanes-Oxley Act Of2002' (2003) 32 WiSt - Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Studium
Teguh M and Morris JL, 'After Enron And Worldcom: The Government,AICPA, And FASB Responses' [2004] SSRN Electronic Journal
 
(图为该法案的国会共同发起人、美国参议员萨班斯和议员奥克斯利
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参考译文

 
一,导语
 
2001年12月,美国最大的能源公司安然公司因其会计丑闻和行政腐败,突然申请破产保护。随后,包括世通公司之外的一系列公司随后也被曝出与安然公司类似的丑闻。由于如此严重的丑闻,有人认为美国资本市场的信心可能受到严重影响。因此,针对这种情况,美国参议院银行、住房和城市事务委员会和众议院金融服务委员会就安然丑闻涉及的会计和投资者保护问题举行了几次听证会。2002年7月30日,《2002年上市公司会计改革和投资者保护法》(又称萨班斯-奥克斯利法案——以其国会共同发起人、萨班斯参议员和奥克斯利议员的名字命名)被通过。
 
然而,在过去的十年里,《萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》(以下简称SOX)引起了不少争议。一些批评人士认为,在21世纪初,市场可以为公司的倒闭提供足够的解决方案。换言之,批评者怀疑过度的法律责任是否会影响到公司的运营成本、风险承担和会计事务。而一般来说,经过十多年的实践,该立法已经可以相对地被证明是否有效。因此,本文旨在回顾和讨论SOX的关键条款,并在回顾SOX的关键特征的基础上,探讨对SOX的批评是否合理。
 
二、SOX法案关键条款
 
安然和世通的案例表明,这些丑闻主要是缺乏对会计职业和公司行为的监管导致的。此外,公司治理腐败和公司治理结构不合理对这些事件的负面影响也不容忽视。而作为一项应对安然等公司丑闻的针对性的法案,SOX的规定是与所暴露的具体问题相对应的。因此,SOX的规定大致可以分为两个方面:一方面是对公司活动进行会计审计监督,另一方面是为了避免公司董事舞弊,平衡公司董事的利益与义务关系。
 
(i) SOX法案前半部分
 
SOX的前半部分,包括从第一章到第六章,规定了公司活动的会计规则和监管立法。这一部分主要涉及审计或财务披露。在SOX的这一部分中,最值得注意的条款可能是整个第一章,该章设立了一个全新的组织,称为上市公司会计监督委员会(PCAOB)。设立PCAOB的目的是监督上市公司和其他发行人的审计工作,以保护投资者的利益,进一步提高信息采集工作所涉及的公众利益。
 
此外,PCAOB确保了上市公司在审计中准确、公正地报告自身相关情况。因此,PCAOB的成立对美国上市公司的审计模式产生了重大影响。除第一章外,第二章至第六章的其他重要的具体基本规则包括:
 
(1) 第302条规定的“财务报告的公司责任”
(2) 第401条规定的“定期报告中的披露”
(3) 第404条规定的“内部控制管理评估”
(4) 第409条规定的“实时发布者披露”
 
(ii)SOX法案后半部分
 
在SOX的后半部分中,建立了一个法律框架,旨在通过刑事和民事两方面的措施对公司高管和白领的犯罪行为实施法律强制惩治手段。由于公司高管和白领在安然等公司丑闻中的负面作用,美国国会大为震惊的同时,也对涉及的公司高管和白领陷入极度愤怒之中。根据讨论该法案的会议记录,立法者要求在法案中增加更严格的控制措施,以遏制这两类人的职务犯罪。实现这一目标的重要具体规定如下:
 
(1) 第802条规定的“篡改文件的刑事处罚”
(2) 第806条规定的“防止欺诈案件中防止报复的民事处罚”
 
三、SOX法案的关键特征综述
 
首先,根据上述若干规定,可以认为,该法主要涉及会计准则、审计准则和公司治理,意味着美国的法律监管由信息披露转向实质性监管。此外,从SOX立法的整体结构来看,提高财务报告的可靠性,如PCAOB的设立、咨询和审计服务的不相容性或责任合伙人轮换等,都被列入法案的前三个章,也占了法案文本长度的三分之一。因此,这也意味着SOX密切关注会计审计改革。
 
其次,除了审计和会计改革外,SOX还关注公司管理层的责任。例如,SOX努力加强公司内部控制,特别是股东的信托责任。这一增强通过防止公司最高管理层的利益与公司整体利益之间的冲突而建立的框架来实现。
 
此外,有些规定,如第302条、第401条和第404条,是通过设立特定程序和政策来应对风险,并明晰授权及责任的底线。因此,SOX作为一种企业内部控制模式,早在几年前就被日本、加拿大和南非等国的司法主权所借鉴。
 
再次,SOX的另一项重大改革是加强对公司高管和白领在公司经营中违法行为的刑事处罚。例如,除了之前的第802节和第806节外,SOX的第906节和第1107节还规定了对违反CEO/CFO财务报表认证或报复举报人的刑事处罚。有学者认为,这些条款直接影响到特定人员的刑事犯罪,可以在一定程度上避免公司犯罪行为。
 
总的来说,SOX的目标是避免审计和会计的虚假报告以及公司内部的腐败。所以客观地说,根据一些调查的可靠统计数据,SOX的作用在某种程度上可能已经达到了立法者的初衷。然而,一些公司和金融从业人员反对SOX法案,并指出法案的某些内容过于严格,且因立法时间过于仓促而逻辑混乱。
此外,批评者还认为,SOX的严格要求可能增加了企业特别是小企业的审计成本,降低了其他国家企业在美国资本市场投资和上市的兴趣。还有一部分批评人士认为,市场本身应该为21世纪初的企业倒闭制定解决方案。换言之,该论点声称,公权力的不必要干预可能对市场环境有害。
 
四、对反对声的讨论
 
值得商榷的是,批评人士的反应可能是缺乏证据和不合理的,他们认为应该让市场制定出解决21世纪初企业倒闭的方案。这一观点已被安然(Enron)和世通(WorldCom)等公司丑闻的教训所否定。
 
反对这种观点的主要原因是,如果没有法律等外部性的力量,资本市场可能会对企业治理结构的改变产生负面影响。最根本的原因在于,在SOX介入之前,这些对企业治理结构的改变不会给公司高管和员工带来利润。因此,也就是说,企业管理者作为控制公司经营的代理人,其利益与这些企业自身的利益以及作为委托人的股东的利益相冲突。从理论上讲,这种本质上的利益冲突称为委托代理问题。
 
如果没有将委托代理问题的影响降到最低的SOX体系,或许企业高管既没有足够的动机,也没有强大的权力改革企业在过去几十年中采用的内部治理结构。同时,公众或股东可能也没有办法推动这一改革。从这个角度看,资本市场要想创造出解决委托代理问题的方案,其难度可想而知。
 
最后但同样重要的一点,之所以不同意批评者的原因在于,在没有立法和政策规定的自然商业环境中广泛存在的负外部性。负外部性是指企业行为可能影响到其他个人或企业,使其他个人或企业付出额外的成本,但后者无法得到相应的补偿的情形。对于董事会和公司高管来说,所有员工、股东或其他利益相关者都是承担公司行为后果的当事方。为了提高企业的利润,企业管理层会将成本转嫁给利益相关者。因此,只有健全的法律框架才能避免这种情况。
 
五、结论
 
简言之,萨班斯-奥克斯利法案可能是一部集中在审计和会计规则、公司治理结构以及对公司高管和白领的刑事处罚三个领域进行改革的法案。由于安然、世通等公司丑闻暴露出的传统委托代理问题和负外部性,事实证明,坚持通过市场自身机制解决问题的观点可能只是一个不合理的假设。因此,SOX在美国国会发表之时是一个积极有效的法案,尽管到目前为止这种观点一直存在争议。
 
 
    *作者:雷雨航,圣伦达律师事务所律师
    *版权所有,转载须注明来源

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