Compensation recovery provisions (commonly known as ‘‘clawbacks’’), which allow firms to recoup compensation from corporate executives involved in accounting improprieties, were first introduced by Section 304 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
(hereafter, SOX 304) in 2002. SOX 304 authorizes the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to enforce the recovery of bonuses paid to CEOs and CFOs of public companies when the company restates its financial statements due to material
noncompliance with any financial reporting requirement as a result of misconduct. However, due to the ambiguities in SOX
304 and the SEC’s limited resources, SOX 304 has been successfully enforced in only a few cases (Salehi and Marino, 2008; Fried and Shilon, 2011; Morgenson, 2011). To facilitate the enforcement of clawbacks, the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act also includes a section (Section 954) on the recovery of erroneously awarded compensation (hereafter, DFA 954). DFA 954 improves upon SOX 304 in two important respects. First, it designates a firm’s board of directors, rather than the SEC, as the enforcer of clawbacks. Second, it does not require misconduct as a prerequisite for clawbacks.