In response to the Enron bankruptcy and other accounting and corporate governance scandals (e.g., Tyco
International, Adelphia), Congress began working on a corporate governance bill the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), which it
rushed to pass after WorldCom filed forbankruptcy in July 2002. Prior to this, thebill’s passage was far from certain; the
House of Representatives and the Senate were in different stages of passing proposals that substantially differed and that
faced significant opposition from lobbyists and trade groups representing accounting and business interests. But after the
WorldCom scandal, “everyone in Washington wanted to do something anything to show they were cracking down
on corporate fraud”