NFIB: Federal Government Can’t Use Sarbanes Oxley to Hook Small Business Owners
www.NFIB.com
For Immediate Release
Kelly Hoffman 202-314-2054 or [email protected]
NFIB: Federal Government Can’t Use Sarbanes Oxley to Hook Small Business Owners
WASHINGTON, D.C., July 8, 2014 — Karen Harned, Executive Director of NFIB’s Small Business Legal Center, made the following statement in response to NFIB’s amicus brief filing in Yates vs. US. In this case the Supreme Court will have to decide whether or not John Yates, a fisherman who threw back three undersized fish, should be criminally prosecuted and imprisoned under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a law intended to stop corporate fraud.
“The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was never intended to attack Americans for crimes unrelated to the destruction of records or documents. It is already difficult enough for small business owners to understand the law without extrapolating obscure federal provisions to the limits of reason. This case is an opportunity for the Supreme Court to rein in government overreach and halt over-criminalization. We are asking the Supreme Court to rule that the United States government has taken an overly aggressive position that Congress never intended with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.”
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The NFIB Small Business Legal Center is a 501(c)(3) organization created to protect the rights of America’s small business owners by providing advisory material on legal issues and by ensuring that the voice of small business is heard in the nation’s courts. The National Federation of Independent Business is the nation’s leading small business association, with offices in Washington, D.C. and all 50 state capitals
