What Happens If I Fail to Become Sarbanes-Oxley Compliant?

If a company chooses to ignore the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, they essentially fall into a non-reporting status and loose the privilege of being listed on an exchange. They end up dropping to the “Pink Sheets.” This inevitably has an adverse affect on both your stock price and your trading volume. Investors lose confidence in the information that the company releases.

If a company CEO and /or CFO commits fraud by knowingly falsifying documents or setting up bogus systems of checks and balances, he is now subject to greater criminal penalties with maximum fines of $5,000,000 and up to 20 years for certain offenses.