“The corporate criminals who fabricate revenues, disguise expenses and inflate their own stock option plans while saddling their employees and investors with hidden costs are no different than an ordinary street thug who snatches a woman’s purse in a shopping mall,” stated Johnson.  “This legislation will make corporate executives who break the law and abuse the public trust pay severely – many of these penalties include prison time.”

Specifics of H.R. 3763 include:
· Creates a Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to enforce auditing, quality control, and independence standards and rules. Fees charged to all publicly traded companies will fund the board;
· Enhances corporate disclosure, including immediate disclosure of any information affecting the material health of the company;
· Ensures investors who have lost money in the markets as a result of corporate malfeasance receive compensation from any legal settlement; and
· Increases criminal penalties for a broad array of white-collar crimes (including 20 years for document shredding and obstruction of justice), freezes extraordinary payments to employees of companies under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and makes it a crime to retaliate against corporate whistleblowers.

Rep. Johnson continued, “The legislation put together by the House and Senate conference is stronger and more responsive to the needs of investors than the bills passed by either body.  It reinforces the principles of free markets – transparency and trust – by making capital markets more accountable to investors and by demanding fair and accurate financial disclosure.”

The Corporate and Auditing Accountability, Responsibility and Transparency Act of 2002 has just emerged from the House and Senate Conference and could reach President Bush’s desk for a signature next week.