March 29, 2006
March 28, 2006
Re: File Number 265-23
Members of the SEC:
I support the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies (ACSPC) work and the proposed recommendations regarding the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) Section 404.
I am the CFO of a small public company. SOX Section 404 compliance as originally stated is expensive and misses the goal. The costs of complying will far out weigh the benefits for our company and provide no additional shareholder value. Section 404 focuses on the low level financial reporting controls and does not do enough to prevent fraud by senior management. I do not believe that kind of fraud perpetrated by the senior management and outside auditors of Enron and WorldCom could have been prevented by SOX. And I do agree that this issue needs to be addressed however, SOX Section 404 in its original form misses the mark. The Advisory Committees recommendations for scaled or proportional securities regulation for smaller public companies are good ones. I urge the the Commission to adopt all of the recommendations in the Final Report.