American Investors Not Wanted

Wall Street

from the stay-home dept

The Sarbanes-Oxley legislation was designed to prevent the type of corporate fraud that made headlines in the earlier part of this decade (mostly leading to slaps on the wrists for those actually responsible). However, so far, it’s not clear it’s done very much to actually prevent fraud, but has done plenty to harm business and innovation. We’ve discussed a few times the Sarbanes-Oxley “innovation tax” where small companies are spending ridiculous sums in “cover your ass” expenses that do little to actually stop scams. Now, there’s further fallout as foreign companies with over 300 American investors are being required to meet the Sarbanes-Oxley requirements as well — leading many to buy back shares from all of their American investors (BugMeNot required, unfortunately). In other words, not only is it costing companies money that could go towards innovation and failing to reduce the likelihood of scams, it’s also closing off investment opportunities for American dollars. That doesn’t seem particularly helpful.