One Of The Prime Beneficiaries Of The Sarbanes Oxley Act Of 2002: The London Stock Exchange!

In the late 1990s, financial markets in the United States (U S ) were rocked by accounting scandals in companies such as Enron and WorldCom. Public confidence in American business was at a low ebb. As a knee-jerk reaction to the scandals, the U S Congress hastily passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) hoping to restore the lost image of the U S business firms. SOX rendered corporate governance and protecting corporate assets a matter of Federal mandates. Penalties for violation of the provisions of SOX include a maximum of 25 years of prison and/or a fine of twenty five million dollars. For small and mid-size firms, the implementation costs became prohibitive. The exorbitant implementation costs of Section 404 of SOX and the draconian criminal sanctions for senior management are driving companies to flee from The New York Stock Exchange to more favorable exchanges overseas. The London Stock Exchange appears to be the most benefited one from the passage of SOX. This paper presents the salient provisions of SOX, the havoc caused to the business firms by its implementation costs, and the present trend of flight of capital from American stock exchanges to overseas stock exchanges such as the London Stock Exchange

The Prospects Of Replacing GAAP With IFRS In The United States

Historically, each country developed its own Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) for financial accounting and reporting and there was no uniformity among the GAAPs of different countries. Comparison of financial statements issued by business firms from different countries has become difficult leading toward suboptimal capital allocation across countries in the world. Gradually, there emerged a global demand for convergence of GAAP of different countries into a single set uniform accounting standards applicable to all countries. As a result, the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) was established in 1973. The IASC formed International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in 2001 which began issuing International Financial Accounting Standards (IFRS). At this point about 100 countries have adopted IFRS for their financial reporting purposes. In 2010, the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) stated that it would be able to make a decision on the adoption of the IFRS in the United States within that year and would allow a five-year period for complete transition, if it is decided to incorporate the IFRS into the U S reporting standards. An intense debate ensued for and against incorporation of IFRS into the US GAAP. Four alternative processes are suggested for the transition - outright adoption, convergence, endorsement, and co-endorsement. This paper presents details of each of these suggested alternatives and future perspective of the adoption of IFRS into the U S accounting and reporting system

Innovation In Business Education: Developing A High Quality Online MBA

Online degree programs were probably pioneered by for-profit universities such as University of Phoenix. Many online degree programs were initially considered low quality academic programs compared to traditional programs. Therefore, many public and private universities were slow to adopt the online programs.  However, gradually more and more "non-traditional" students began to enter schools. Employees already holding jobs began to seek to better their qualifications by coming back to school while still working.  For both these groups, online degree programs offered an opportunity to go to school while still employed. Consequently, many schools offering traditional MBA programs are forced to offer online MBA programs to meet the demand and to beat the competing schools. In keeping up with the trend, Arkansas State University launched a high quality online MBA program that parallels the best of the ongoing online MBA programs.  This MBA program has been ranked number 1 in faculty credentials and training and in the top 15 in all categories among all online MBA programs by U. S. News and World Report for three consecutive years. This paper presents how the Graduate Faculty of Arkansas State's College of Business developed its high quality online MBA and how the program operates with revenue sharing for the College of Business

SECs Push Back On Adoption Of IFRS In The United States

For a long time, the United States (US) Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), are considered as the gold standard for financial reporting by companies all over the world. With the advent of globalization of capital markets and the proliferation of the multi-national corporations (MNCs), there emerged a movement for developing a uniform set of accounting standards applicable to companies all over the world in order to achieve uniformity in financial reporting. The movement is initiated by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) which started to issue International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Over the last decade, four alternative methods have been considered by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a possible adoption of IFRS in the US: outright adoption, convergence, endorsement, and condorsement. Recently, the SEC appears to be taking a step backwards in its policy towards adoption of IFRS. The process involves prohibitive costs to US companies which are already suffering under the ill effects of a great recession. The adoption of IFRS would also impose enormous burden on the academia, the accounting profession, and the regulatory apparatus of the SEC. Also, there is a question as to whether a single set of international accounting standards applicable to all countries is even desirable. The FASB and the IASB have been working on convergence since 2002. The SEC began studying the pros and cons of adoption of IFRS since 2010. But, in its latest staff report, issued in July 2012, the SEC did not include any final policy decision as to whether IFRS will ever be adopted at all in any manner in the US. Furthermore, the SEC, in its report, made it very clear that turning over control of US accounting standard-setting authority to the IASB is out of question. This paper presents the various efforts made so far in aligning US GAAP with the IFRS and the future outlook regarding adoption of IFRS in the US

Sarbanes-Oxley Act Of 2002 And Non-Profit Organizations

The United States (US) has the unique record of having the largest sector of Non-Profit Organizations (NPO) in the world, comprising of over one million NPOs.  The participation of Americans in philanthropic activities is unparalleled in the world.  In recent years, NPOs received over 1.5 trillion in revenues as reported by the Internal Revenue Service. These charitable organizations contribute immensely towards improving the lives of disadvantageous people.  However, the huge NPO sector of our economy has been plagued recently with a deluge of corporate financial scandals similar to the scandals in corporations in the for-profit sector, such as Enron, WorldCom and Tyco. The misappropriations of funds involved over 150 NPOs, including world renowned organizations such as Red Cross and United Way.  The embezzled funds amounted to over 1 billion.  The US Congress reacted quickly and vehemently to such scandals in the for-profit corporations with the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), with far reaching consequences to the American business organizations.  The rigorous provisions of SOX did not extend to Non-Profit Organizations except in two specific areas – whistleblower protection and retention of documents for verification.  However, the present flood of NPO scandals triggered a bevy of SOX-like proposals for laws for Non-Profit Organizations as well, in the US Congress and in many state legislatures.  Some states have already passed such laws.  This paper presents a brief description of the NPO scandals, the ongoing proposals of SOX-like laws for NPOs in several states and their impact on the future governance of the NPOs

Accounting Fraud, And White-Collar Crimes In The United States

Time was when fraud used to involve a simple exchange of tangible items, by the perpetrator of fraud, tricking the victims to part with something valuable and in return receive something almost worthless. In recent times, the exponential growth in communication technology and proliferation of computers paved the way for phenomenal upsurge in corporate fraud, while-collar crime, and identity theft. These crimes are costing the country hundreds of billions of dollars every year. The nation is witnessing a peculiar trend in the nature of crimes. While crimes of violence such as murder and rape and property crimes like armed robbery, burglary, and car thefts are on the decline, crimes involving accounting fraud, white-collar crime and embezzlement have shown a meteoric rise. Accounting fraud is defined as knowingly falsifying accounting records in order to boost sales revenue and net income. Accounting fraud is perpetrated by corporations by means of presenting false information, using funds for illegal purposes, overstating revenues, understating expenses, overstating the value of corporate assets, and understating liabilities. Many spectacular corporate scandals such as Enron in the past decade involved large scale accounting fraud. Corporate fraud can have devastating consequences, not just to the investors in the company’s stock but also to tens of thousands of employees who invested their retirement savings in the company’s 401K accounts. Several laws were enacted to prevent corporate fraud with mixed results. Accounting students in this country have been receiving no training at all in the area of prevention and detection of fraud. This paper presents a short history of corporate fraud, the laws enacted to deal with the problem, and the role of codes of ethics for business firms in dealing with corporate fraud

India: The Future Economic And Knowledge Super Power?

India and China are the only countries in the world having a population of over one billion each.  Until the 1980s, their economies were among the poorest in the world.   India has been the largest democracy since 1947 but heart-rending sights of extreme poverty can be seen even in the flourishing business capitals.  There are no subways, very few highways which results in nightmarish tangle of traffic all the time.  China has been under the communist rule since the revolution led by Mao Tse Tung in 1966 and still continues to be under the centralized communist rule.  Both the countries operated under centralized planning and kept their economies closed to global markets.  However, in the past two decades, the world is witnessing a strange miracle taking place in both the countries.  In the early 1980s, first China and later, India,  started opening their economies to foreign direct investment and began participating more and more in global trade.  The world had never witnessed this rare phenomenon of two relatively poor countries that together consist of a third of the world’s population, simultaneously taking off on a steep ascent in their economies.  During the past twenty years, China has been growing at a heady rate of over 9% a year and India has growing at over 6% per year.   This miraculous and sustained growth of these two countries is being watched by the rest of the world with mixture of surprise and apprehension.  At this rate, it is expected that, within the next two or three decades, India and China together would account for over half of the entire world’s output.  This paper presents the several factors of the phenomenal development of the Indian economy and analyses the impact of continued rise in their prosperity on the global economy

Evaluation of ultrasound guided verses nerve stimulator technique of interscalene brachial plexus block: insights from Indian multi-super specialty hospital

Background: To provide adequate intraoperative anaesthesia and postoperative analgesia for orthopaedic surgery continues to be a procedural challenge. The administration of brachial plexus anaesthesia can be facilitated through nerve stimulation or by ultrasound guidance. Hence study was conducted to compare differences in these techniques in patients undergoing interscalene brachial plexus block (ISSB).Methods: In this prospective, randomized, observer-blinded study, 60 patients (Male=41, Female=19) were scheduled for orthopaedic shoulder and upper arm surgeries matching inclusion and exclusion criteria. Patients were randomly allocated to either Ultrasound (US, n=30) group or Nerve Stimulator (NS, n=30) group through a computer-generated randomization.Results: There was significant difference between US and NS group with respect to average number of attempts taken, block performance time (BPT), onset of sensory and motor block, duration of motor block and patient satisfaction score. Whereas not much significant difference was observed in duration of sensory block, block success rate and incidence of post operative side effects.Conclusions: The results suggest that US guided ISBB is significantly superior to NS guided block in terms of faster onset of action; lower number of attempts to locate Interscalene brachial plexus; longer duration of block and overall success rate with favourable tolerability at real-life scenario

Structure-based virtual screening of pseudomonas aeruginosa lpxa inhibitors using pharmacophore-based approach

Multidrug resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a noticeable and ongoing major obstacle for inhibitor design. In P. aeruginosa, uridine diphosphate N-acetylglucosamine (UDP-GlcNAc) acetyltransferase (PaLpxA) is an essential enzyme of lipid A biosynthesis and an attractive drug target. PaLpxA is a homotrimer, and the binding pocket for its substrate, UDP-GlcNAc, is positioned between the monomer A–monomer B interface. The uracil moiety binds at one monomer A, the GlcNAc moiety binds at another monomer B, and a diphosphate form bonds with both monomers. The catalytic residues are conserved and display a similar catalytic mechanism across orthologs, but some distinctions exist between pocket sizes, residue differences, substrate positioning and specificity. The analysis of diversified pockets, volumes, and ligand positions was determined between orthologues that could aid in selective inhibitor development. Thenceforth, a complex-based pharmacophore model was generated and subjected to virtual screening to identify compounds with similar pharmacophoric properties. Docking and general Born-volume integral (GBVI) studies demonstrated 10 best lead compounds with selective inhibition properties with essential residues in the pocket. For biological access, these scaffolds complied with the Lipinski rule, no toxicity and drug likeness properties, and were considered as lead compounds. Hence, these scaffolds could be helpful for the development of potential selective PaLpxA inhibitors. © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.National Natural Science Foundation of China, NSFC: 31171209, 31071152Funding: This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers: 31071152 and 31171209) to WG