A major outgrowth from the business failures amid allegations of fraudulent financial reporting discussed in the last chapter was the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. This Act—named after its primary sponsors in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley—was signed into law by President George W. Bush on July 30, 2002. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (hereafter SOX or the Act) is generally viewed as the most far-reaching piece of securities legislation since the original Securities Acts were passed in the 1930s.