American Investors Not Wanted

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.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread



Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.