Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

For more than seventy years, public companies that generate substantial revenues from exports and cross-border activities have been obliged to disclose material export-control problems such as, for example, threatened denials of their rights to export, exposures to multimillion dollar fines, or the possibility that key employees may be sent to prison. Sarbanes-Oxley Section 302 has upped the ante by requiring officers to affirm, not only that they have reviewed and approved the adequacy of their financial controls, but also that they have designed and maintained controls to ensure that material information is brought to their attention in time to make accurate disclosures for each reporting period.

Depending on the scope of a public company’s reliance on exporting, any threat to the company’s right to export, even for a short time, may well be material enough to require disclosure. Accordingly, many companies have taken the opportunity presented by their re-tooling for compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley to implement or re-evaluate export control compliance programs.

Export Compliance NE offers informal analyses of companies export-control compliance obligations free of charge, as well as cost-effective advice on structuring and implementing compliance programs that comport with Sarbanes-Oxley.