The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was the first step, aimed at curbing corporate corruption and accounting irregularities by focusing on auditor independence, executives and boards.
Mr. Falcon described a corporate culture that fostered the accounting irregularities and said he doubted that the problems could be fixed without a shake-up of senior management.
It required corporate managers to be aware of accounting irregularities and encouraged accountants and managers to report potential problems to regulators.
At the same time, this argument might go, the underlying failures at Enron and the others were not accounting irregularities as such but other kinds of corporate-governance failure altogether, not even addressed by Sarbanes-Oxley.
Sherron Watkins was vice-president of corporate development at Enron in 2001 when she uncovered accounting irregularities in the company.
Corporate investigators investigate different types of allegations, criminal frauds, and irregularities in accounts, electronic crime, embezzlement, information leaks and other several activities.
Other family-run corporate icons in Italy have collapsed in the wake of financial irregularities.
Second, they are analysing the complex corporate restructuring orchestrated by MG Rover's owners to identify possible accounting irregularities.
But the irregularities suggest there may still be problems with its overall corporate culture and governance, admits someone close to its board.
"This cowboy capitalism must stop," said Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, saying "the shameful corporate culture of old-boy relationships" was partly to blame for WorldCom's accounting irregularities.
Proposed measures include ending corporate political contributions, and the option to dismiss members of Chile's congress if irregularities are detected in their campaign financing.
