President Bush declared the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to be “the most far-reaching reform of American business practice since the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt”. This may be true, but the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is hardly limited to American business.
It reaches any non-US issuer that reports to the SEC under US securities laws. As a result, one of the Act’s most “far reaching” provisions is a mandate that the SEC establish uniform “minimum standards of professional conduct” for lawyers who “practice before the Commission in any way in the representation of issuers”.
