Sarbanes-Oxley may never work its way into the hearts and minds of Wall Street. The regulation came under attack yet again today (see earlier post on Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYC's financial services) as a reason New York City and the U.S. are losing their financial edge to cities like London. The complaint is the 2002 law is too much and too costly to obey. And that's driving IPOs, hedge funds and the like to other places that DON'T have the same rules.
Who does like SarbOx? (see below on investors) James Post does. He's a professor of corporate governance and ethics at Boston University's School of Management. But William Niskanen is one of those who hates it. He's from the Cato Institute. Both men appeared on "Morning Call."
Post believes SarbOx contributes to the overall integrity of the markets and he says the U.S. has had a number one ranking as a place for financial dealings because it has regulations.
Niskanan just thinks SarbOx is bad--and says if the WorldCom collapse hadn't happened--there would be no SarbOx at all. He thinks the U.S. is going to continue to lose out to places like London--as long as we keep SarBox around.