Small Companies Paying Big For The Sins Of Enron

Entrepreneurs planning to take their ventures public must come to grips with an unfortunate fact of life after Enron. Small businesses are being made to pay disproportionately for the sins of the big boys. The penalty small companies are shouldering is in the form of higher regulatory compliance costs mandated by the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, which Congress passed in 2002 in response to accounting scandals at a number of Fortune 500 companies - Enron, Tyco and WorldCom most prominently. The intent of the legislation was to instill greater confidence in U.S. equities markets and more accountability in boardrooms through major changes in corporate governance. This paper gives the information regarding how small companies are paying for the sins of Enron.