Few would question that the corporate world is in compliance mode—and for good reason. Memories of when companies like Enron and Global Crossing manipulated earnings, lied to investors, and inspired Congress to enact the Sarbanes-Oxley Act may now be a decade old, but they are still fresh in the minds of many executives.
More recently, the events of the 2008 financial crisis brought on by big banks investing in mortgage-backed securities that weren’t worth the paper they were written on are even harder to forget, especially since we are still enduring the economic hangover that ensued. And once again, Congress addressed the problem with legislation. The resulting Dodd-Frank Act is so complex that roughly 75 percent of it has yet to be implemented after more than two years.
