In a major, stunning, but not totally unexpected ruling, the Supreme Court struck down part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that was created in the aftermath of a rash of corporate scandals in the early 2000s.

The High Court ruled 5-to-4 that the Act violates the Constitution's separation of powers mandate since the president is unable to remove members of The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which was created to oversee the outside accounting firms that audit public companies.

Paul Krugman's column today called my attention to a paper that anyone interested in financial reform should check out.

The paper completely contradicts the conventional wisdom that innovation in finance is a good thing.

The number and value of securities class action settlements rose last year. However, the figures are still way down from what they were several years ago.

According to Cornerstone Research, which keeps score and cosponsors the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse, in 2009 there were 103 court-approved securities class action settlements, up slightly from 97 in 2008. However, the settlements in 2009 involved $3.8 bil­lion in total settlement funds, up 35 percent from the prior year.

Submitted by Caleb Newquist, republished from Going Concern, Accounting News for Accountants and CFOs.

We really don't foresee any scenario where a politician would denounce a piece of legislation with his/her name on it but since the mainstream media has the tendency to bludgeon the Enron/Andersen/Sarbanes-Oxley mantra into everyone's gray matter, Ox figured he'd better get on record saying that SOx might be the most important moment in US history since the Louisiana Purchase.