Following a string of wrongdoing by corporate executives in 2000 to 2002, and the subsequent failures of their firms, Washington lawmakers proposed more than 50 policies to reassure investors. None of the resulting bills were able to pass both houses of Congress until the Banking Committee Chairman Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) proposed legislation to establish new auditing and accounting standards. The bill was called the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002. Later the name was changed to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. On july30,2002,President George Bush signed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act into law.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002: Law that revised and strengthened auditing and accounting standards.