SOX co-writer Michael Oxley, who retired from Congress in January, is moving on. The architect of the law designed to stamp out corporate corruption is joining the law firm Baker Hostetter, according to news reports.
Basically, he'll be helping companies get around the law, leading a white-collar crime defense team to defend against the law's violations.
"Lord, I'm a pro-business guy,", he told Ashby Jones at The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog
That might be news to some business leaders. For the law firm, it's a huge plus but you have to wonder how businesses would feel about getting advice from someone who created legislation that now gives them so much heartache.
Only recently, Oxley told an audience he thought he and Paul Sarbanes could have done a better job with the law that bears their name. "Frankly, I would have written it differently, and he would have written it differently. But it was not normal times," reports the International Herald Tribune.
He also reveals that getting rid of the accounting firm Andersen was a "White House decision."
"They had to really look tough and so they decided at the highest levels they were just going to give the death penalty to Arthur Andersen. I think at the end of the day virtually anyone would agree it was a terrible decision, because you eliminated a major accounting firm and you just sent a chill through the accounting industry."
That is pretty chilling stuff. Particularly because what subsequently happened devastated the audit industry, and didn't do business much good either because it reduced the amount of choice.
Maybe Oxley was laying on the pro-business rhetoric in preparation his new job. Still, the story does tell us how badly politicians can over-react and misread a problem.
Just a quick note. This is a GREAT blog! I will be reading this one regularly. I work in logistics and supply chain and SOX touches our business and that of our customers regularly.
best regards
Eric
It’s nice of him to shoe somebody the ropes but i don’t think he’s doing it for free.