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Sarbanes-Oxley Act (Why Twitter may be in trouble)
Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law ^ | April 2021 | Wex Definitions Team

Posted on 05/13/2022 9:17:58 AM PDT by DoodleBob

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Cliffs Notes version: if Twitter's books are cooked, not only can Musk walk away from the purchase but Twitter's CEO and CFO are in serious trouble.

SOX compliance is no picnic.

And don't forget, Dubya signed this into law...

1 posted on 05/13/2022 9:17:58 AM PDT by DoodleBob
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To: DoodleBob

Twitter management should be in prison, but Garland and DOJ won’t let Marxists be held to the laws meant for the little people.


2 posted on 05/13/2022 9:21:30 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: DoodleBob

Musk’s team is discovering >5% of Twitter accounts are bots.

Think CCP sponsored installed bot centers to control information flow.

Marxist Propaganda 101.


3 posted on 05/13/2022 9:24:15 AM PDT by Hostage (Article V)
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To: DoodleBob

SOX is a pretty solid set of controls to assure the financial statement is valid.

It includes both financial and information technology controls.

External auditors can rely on controls audited by internal audit, but it would have been proven to have been accurate, at some point in time.

I will say I am not aware of a SOX control that would care about the number of customers. Instead, it is strictly financial, so income and expenditures would be things the accounting department would have to get right—not the number of “valid customers.”


4 posted on 05/13/2022 9:24:19 AM PDT by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
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To: MtnClimber

And you can bet Musk knows this law and possible consequences.


5 posted on 05/13/2022 9:25:15 AM PDT by ThePatriotsFlag (D.H.S. = Defund Homeland Security)
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To: DoodleBob

Oooooh. By having his offer accepted Musk forced Twatter to open their books and now he’s using that info to attack the scumbag leftists who run the company and to legally withdraw or perhaps restate his offer after the stock tanks.

Twatter asserted that only 5% of their account were bots and their advertising revenue was based on this assertion. With the real number of bots looking more like +20% of accounts then this is fraud both nationally and internationally.

Of course, Musk’s perfect defense for revealing all of this is that he did not want to assume the criminal liabilities for the past behavior of the company.


6 posted on 05/13/2022 9:25:22 AM PDT by MercyFlush (The Soviet Empire is right now doing a dead cat bounce.)
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To: DoodleBob

Exec’s leaving in droves or being fired tells me something with the cooked-books has surfaced. Elon knew this long ago and is now making it public. This could end in a legal mess for this at Twitter involved.


7 posted on 05/13/2022 9:28:09 AM PDT by devane617 (RUN FOR LOCAL ELECTED OFFICE! COUNCIL,SCHOOL BOARD, ETC.)
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To: ConservativeMind

Ad revenue depends on the number of customers. If they knowingly overstated the number of customers via deliberately undercounting the percentage of bots, that is fraud. The corporate officers are in serious trouble if that is the case.

I’ve worked in audit for over 20 years.


8 posted on 05/13/2022 9:28:30 AM PDT by FLT-bird
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To: ConservativeMind
Instead, it is strictly financial, so income and expenditures would be things the accounting department would have to get right—not the number of “valid customers.”

If revenue is impacted by number of "valid customers" (more customers means more advertising revenue) then SOX certainly applies.

9 posted on 05/13/2022 9:31:10 AM PDT by FtrPilot
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To: Hostage

I’ll bet they were Twitter generated “users” to pump up numbers. I will also bet that the entire stats figures for them are all faked. Faked Democrat “followers”, fake everything to do politically with the platform. Once you start “shadow banning” and manipulating and promoting one segment of users over another you can’t stop and the evidence will be in the code. All they have to do is check JIRA logs/tickets for the code releases and the evidence will be apparent.


10 posted on 05/13/2022 9:32:49 AM PDT by databoss
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To: DoodleBob

Which is why going private equity is nice.


11 posted on 05/13/2022 9:33:34 AM PDT by blackdog (Disinformer and Deplorable because I do my own thinking. )
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To: FLT-bird

Twitter execs #LockEmUp


12 posted on 05/13/2022 9:33:44 AM PDT by citizen (Thieves of private property pass their lives in chains; thieves of public prop. in riches and luxury)
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To: ConservativeMind

SOX cares very much about valid customers. Fake accounts is a big SOX violation for a number of reasons including fraud and rev rec.


13 posted on 05/13/2022 9:36:55 AM PDT by Ms. AntiFeminazi
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To: blackdog

Unfortunately SOX also now applies to private companies just not to the same extent. Just give it time. Grrr


14 posted on 05/13/2022 9:39:13 AM PDT by Ms. AntiFeminazi
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To: DoodleBob
And he should not have.

It was later shown that Arthur Anderson did nothing wrong. This was strictly done to crash the economy.

15 posted on 05/13/2022 9:41:00 AM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (It is better to light a single flame thrower then curse the darkness. A bunch of them is better yet)
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To: MtnClimber

Musk should nix the deal


16 posted on 05/13/2022 9:52:18 AM PDT by nikos1121
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To: ThePatriotsFlag; MtnClimber; FLT-bird; MercyFlush; FtrPilot; databoss; ConservativeMind; ...
I read that violations of SOX's federal securities law elements are prosecuted by the SEC, while federal criminal law violations are prosecuted by the DOJ.

Yes I know...same boss.

But while I have zero faith in Garland/Justice, in my experience the SEC is a rabid dog when it comes to guarding their territory.

Remember, even in a criminal enterprise there is ego, pride, megalomania, and territorial disputes.

I expect the SEC will go after Twitter if there is a case.

17 posted on 05/13/2022 9:57:31 AM PDT by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s^2)
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To: DoodleBob

Let’s not forget that Netflix is now doing a 180 and trying to play nice. All this going public greed is kicking them in the nutts.


18 posted on 05/13/2022 9:58:00 AM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie (Let's go Brandon)
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To: DoodleBob

It wasn’t that many years ago that when something like this FRAUD was brought to light, the CEO and the Entire Board was ARRESTED AND CHARGED, now we also have Civil Asset Forfeiture, and they should CLEAN THEM OUT FINANCIALLY and leave them with nothing but the clothes on their back.


19 posted on 05/13/2022 9:58:22 AM PDT by eyeamok (founded in cynicism, wrapped in sarcasm)
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To: databoss

You made me look up JIRA dammit!

Now my code project list needs updating.

You game for some seed funding?


20 posted on 05/13/2022 9:58:38 AM PDT by Hostage (Article V)
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