Compliance, regulatory and reporting issues around Sarbanes-Oxley

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act established a new paradigm for corporate responsibility, accountability, transparency, and behaviour. Consequently, senior management and boards of directors of many entertainment and media companies have focussed attention on ensuring they have embedded processes in their organisations to help protect against incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading public disclosures. Are stakeholders now receiving appropriate information?

Apparently not. The PricewaterhouseCoopers Management Barometer Survey has found that although many large companies have taken steps over the past two years to improve transparency, senior executives see much room for improvement in reporting to their company’s five key stakeholder groups, with many saying the information needs of some groups are being under- or over-delivered relative to their strategic performance.

How PricewaterhouseCoopers can help

Clearly, many companies will need a professional advisor on matters related to the full range of corporate responsibility issues—from financial disclosure to forensic services to corporate fraud. Through PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Sarbanes-Oxley compliance services, internal audit and broad range of other assurance services, we help clients achieve:

• Increased reliability and transparency of financial statements;
• More efficient allocation of capital;
• Simplification and standardisation of policies and processes;
• Shift from manual to automated controls;
• Enhanced control environment and "tone at the top";
• Improved merger and acquisition due diligence; and
• Availability of funding and resources to improve internal control over financial reporting.