Best Practices for Sarbanes-Oxley Implementation

In a challenging business environment fraught with new rules, financial executives are clearly assuming a lead role to ensure that both existing and new practices comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 ("the Act").

Though much of the final rulemaking mandated by the new laws have yet to be finalized, companies have focused attention toward complying with proposed rulemaking with particular attention in two areas: financial statement certification and internal controls.

This paper will summarize practices used for implementing the Act of 2002 based on guidance from and interviews with FEI's Committee on Corporate Reporting (CCR), other FEI member companies and from final rules or proposed rulemaking from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC