Custos e benefícios da Lei Sarbanes-Oxley

: o caso BPN

Abstract

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was implemented in the USA in 2002, after a decade of corporate scandals that shook its economy. According to Ahmed et al. (2010), SOX's main goal was to protect investors by improving corporate financial disclosures. However, there are people who support that the benefits provided by SOX are not enough to make up for the costs of its implementation and maintenance. On this matter, the researched literature diverges quite a lot. On one hand, the economic impact of SOX on corporations is quite significant, on the other hand, SOX's main goal of protecting investors and improving market perception by preventing fraudulent behavior is being achieved. The present study focuses on understanding the impact of implementing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, regarding its effect on fraud prevention, onto the BPN Case. When comparing the gathered literature with the case study, we indentify that there is a huge disparity, between Portugal and the USA, regarding the penalties of fines and imprisonment awarded to corporate fraud crimes. This unevenness reflects the importance given by the USA to this kind of fraud and it could be considered as an alert to countries with a less evolved financial supervision system.

Date of Award	23 Jul 2014
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Maria Luisa Anacoreta Correia (Supervisor)