Japanese companies bracing for 'J-SOX'.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: REGULATION

Years ago, Japanese companies were the innovators that the rest of the world looked to for ideas about process. Now, the Japanese are taking a page from the American playbook and will be facing their own version of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, appropriately named "J-SOX."

Enabling legislation was passed earlier this year, and listed companies in Japan--some 3,800 in total--will be required to have internal control processes in place starting with fiscal years beginning April 1, 2008. Full compliance will be required in and after the fiscal year ending March 2009.

The rules are based largely on Sarbanes-Oxley Sections 302 and 404, which many finance officers in this country are intimately familiar with. There will be a management assessment of internal controls and an auditor testing component as well.

J.R. Reagan, managing director and global solution leader at global consultant Bearing Point's Risk, Compliance and Security practice, says that a flurry of restatements, as well as a few "Enron-like incidents," helped persuade Japanese regulators that they needed a U.S.-style measure to improve controls and financial reporting.

Indeed, Reagan says, Bearing Point's consulting experience there suggests that Japanese companies haven't had the same degree of rigor and control in audit and reporting as has generally prevailed in the U.S...