Legal Question in Technology Law in Florida

Sarbanes Oxley - Excuse or Abuse?

I work at a large national Advertising agency and have been having a battle with IT over trying to get certain services which nearly every large agency has.

The two services in question are:

1) FTP server

to transmit final print-ready files to vendors and to receive art from clients. No permanent or confidential assets are held

2) Font server

Most agencies have a server based font activation. Once set can be activated on multiple computers As it stand with us, fonts are copied to each machine. Not only is this inefficient if the font get corrupt, but this goes against most font usage agreements.

Problem:

Every time we ask for a particular service, our VP of IT says he cannot do it because of Sarbanes-Oxley violations.

If this is the case then every studio and agency in the United States is violating this. Not having these services costs us much time in lost productivity.

Anyone who is familiar with SOX guidelines and how they relate in this case, please help. I need to escalate this fight but need some ammo.

As far as I know having these are NOT violations of SOX guidelines as they put no assets in danger nor do they have anything to do with finance.

Thank you.


Asked on 2/11/08, 11:36 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Philip Duvalsaint Philip A. Duvalsaint, PLLC

Re: Sarbanes Oxley - Excuse or Abuse?

DISCLAIMER: Not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is formed hereby. No confidentiality attaches to said communications. You are advised to seek advice from qualified legal counsel.

SOX only covers publicly traded companies. So if your company is privately held, it is inapplicable. Simply put, SOX requires the chief executive and chief financial officers of public companies to attest to the accuracy of financial reports (Section 302) and require public companies to establish adequate internal controls over financial reporting (Section 404).

Generally speaking, Section 404 requires that operational processes are documented and practiced demonstrating the origins of data within the balance sheet.

You should request clarification in writing from your corporate counsel regarding this. IT people are notorious for citing SOX as a reason why certain action cannot be taken.

Read more
Answered on 2/11/08, 1:49 pm


Related Questions & Answers

More Computer & Technology Law questions and answers in Florida